Retouched Negatives
by elarielf
Summary: Retouching: "Altering a print or negative after development to remove blemishes." This fic contains non-chronological companion stories to Snapshots – other POVs, other worlds, other situations. Chapters that related to specific Snapshots chapters will be labelled.
1. Genbu: Meeting

Genbu doesn't remember, but the first time he ever saw Lelouch was before the fifteen-year-old moved in, as he waited to talk to the apartment manager about his parking space.

"Look, kid, I don't know what to tell you. Without an adult with a decent job co-signing this, I can't rent an apartment to you. It's that simple."

"I understand. However, I need somewhere to live. I can give you the first and last month's rent, the security deposit, and my word that further payments will be on time and that I will be an ideal tenant, keep to myself and require very little in the way of attention." Genbu had been a little impressed at the collected way the strange child had spoken. "To that end, what kind of bribe will you require?"

"…whut?"

"You are the manager, not the owner, correct? Therefore, the risk in taking on a risky tenant would mainly rest on another's shoulders. The only risk you would be taking is if I were to renege on this deal and the situation came to the owner's attention."

"Now, just one moment…"

"I am willing to compensate you, personally, for taking that risk. To that end, I need to know how much of a bribe you will need."

There was a long pause, and Genbu realized that maybe he should come back later. But he so rarely had a weekday off, and the manager's office was generally closed evenings and weekends…

"Three hundred bucks."

"Done."

"Welcome to our building, Mr. Lamperouge."

The boy moved in next to him and Suzaku, so he saw him on a semi-regular basis over the next few months – nothing more than passing him in the halls or when picking up his mail. It never occurred to him to wonder how he could afford to live alone, but both drugs and prostitution were possible options, a view enforced by the fact that he'd occasionally be leaving when Genbu got back from shopping at nine or ten at night, dressed in understated but subtly provocative tight black clothes under a deep red jacket. He looked good, in a way that children shouldn't.

It was a concern, in the way that parents could be about children in general, seeing their child's future in an older, unrelated child. But he never looked bruised or abused, and Genbu's concern didn't generally extend past his front door unless there were extreme circumstances. He had his own problems to worry about, and this cool, self-sufficient teen wasn't one of them.

The first time Suzaku met him, Genbu learned his name, and both their fates were sealed.

"Daaaad…"

Genbu had been juggling mail and his briefcase from work and Suzaku's schoolbag and hadn't really been paying attention. "What?"

"Who's that pretty man?"

"Who?"

"There!" Suzaku tugged impatiently on Genbu's sleeve and the mail flew everywhere.

Genbu closed his eyes and counted to ten, the way his wife had taught him, rather than losing his temper and yelling or worse. This gave Suzaku the opportunity to pull away from him and run towards the stranger. "Suzaku!"

To his credit, the boy looked as horrified as Genbu felt as Suzaku rushed up to him, nearly dropping his text books in surprise. "What are–"

"Hi! My name's Suzaku Kururugi, except that it's really Kururugi Suzaku, but that doesn't matter, and I live in apartment 312 with my dad. Who're you?"

"Lelouch Lamperouge…" the boy – Lelouch – was looking at Genbu rather than at Suzaku, his expression both confused and a little scared. "Ah, is that your father?"

Suzaku grinned and grabbed Lelouch's wrist. "Yeah. You should come over for tea or something. Where do you live?"

"The apartment next to you." Lelouch seemed completely lost, overwhelmed by Suzaku's impulsive friendliness. Genbu was surprised as well – it wasn't like this was typical of Suzaku. If anything, after the loss of his mother, Suzaku had become more shy and distant from strangers, even while looking desperately for something from Genbu that he had no idea how to give to his son.

Genbu never figured out what decided it for him – Suzaku's uncharacteristic behaviour, the stress of the day, the everpresent guilt over his failure as a single parent. Perhaps it was something else, something unique to Lelouch. No matter the why, it didn't change what Genbu did next.

"If you have some free time now…"

The immediate suspicion that settled on Lelouch's face for more than a short moment was honestly reassuring to Genbu, an appropriate reaction for a teen to an invitation from a grown man and stranger. He fully expected Lelouch to refuse and, at first, it seemed as though he would.

"Please?" Suzaku sounded almost desperate, but somehow not whiny, his eyes large and fixed on Lelouch. "Please, Lelouch?"

The suspicion Lelouch had built up melted away under a defensive helplessness. "I… suppose…"

"Yay!" Suzaku kept his hold on Lelouch's arm, chattering incessantly as they walked up to the apartment. Lelouch didn't say much apart from accepting the tea with polite thanks, but he did relax, even after Suzaku climbed onto his lap. Genbu watched, perplexed, as Lelouch tried to figure out what to do with a lapful of young boy, eventually resting a hand lightly on Suzaku's head.

His mother used to do that. Genbu stared into his tea as Suzaku sighed happily and leaned against Lelouch's chest.

After Lelouch left, finally promising Suzaku he'd visit again after multiple prompts, Suzaku leaned against the closed door, smiling.

"Dad?"

"Hmm?"

"I really like him."

It was the happiest Genbu could remember seeing him in years.


	2. Seme Zaku: Snapshots 6

"Hey babe."

Lelouch smiled up at Suzaku as he pressed a kiss against his head. "Good morning. Want some juice or something? The eggs are almost done."

"Hmm… you _know_ what I want…" Suzaku's arms wrapped around Lelouch's waist as he fitted himself behind Lelouch's body. The soft gasp and the way Lelouch instinctively tilted his head to give Suzaku access to his neck made a thrill run through Suzaku's entire body. Having Lelouch here, like this, was still more than he could believe.

He was kissing Lelouch's neck, sliding his hand under Lelouch's apron and shirt, against the soft, trembling skin of his stomach, when the sound of Nunnally's voice from the other room broke the mood.

"Suzaku-san, Lelouch? Are you up yet?"

Lelouch, predictably, tensed up and pulled away. "I'm making breakfast, Nunnally. Suzaku's with me."

Suzaku good-naturedly placed one last kiss on the back of Lelouch's head and backed off. "I was just getting some juice, Nunnally. Want some?"

"Oh, yes please."

Suzaku gathered up the glasses and drinks, watching Lelouch steadfastly ignore him, before pressing his lips against the nape of Lelouch's neck to make him shiver. "I love the way your ass looks in those pants."

"…it's the school uniform."

"Then it must be you." Suzaku swept out of the room before Lelouch could answer, barely catching a glimpse of Lelouch's flushed face on the way out.

After breakfast, they dropped Nunnally off and hung around a bit before school started. "So… I had a weird dream last night."

Lelouch laughed. "I'm only interested if you were naked – in front of a large audience or not."

"I was." Suzaku waited a beat as Lelouch smirked. "And so were you."

"And the audience?"

Suzaku shook his head. "No audience. Just you and me in bed together. Naked."

"Are you sure that was a _dream_?" Lelouch asked archly. "Because I seem to recall that happening in reality."

"So do I…" Suzaku purred, remembering last night. "But, nope, it was definitely a dream. You were all weird."

Lelouch's amusement seemed to be taking on an edge. "Ah. _Now_ we get into it. Suzaku, if you have some sort of strange fantasy, just ask. If I don't want to do it, I'll say no, but I can't think of a single thing I'd refuse you."

Suzaku kissed him. It was impossible not to after that.

A few minutes later, flushed and flustered, Suzaku recalled what they'd been talking about. "Ah, no. It's nothing strange like that. You were just all… timid."

Lelouch snorted.

"No, seriously. It was like we'd never even kissed. You didn't even seem to know what to do with me." Suzaku raised his hands defensively as Lelouch's eyes narrowed. "Hey, it was a dream. Trust me, in the real world you know _exactly_ what to do with me."

"Damn straight." Lelouch settled back. "So you were naked in bed with a virginal–"

"More than that. _Prudish_."

Lelouch's face screwed up as he tried not to raise an incredulous eyebrow at that. "Alright, then. A _prudish_ me. What then?"

"Well, I tried to calm you down – gentle touches, soft voice, all that stuff… and then I kissed you."

"And?"

"…and?"

"How was I?"

Suzaku couldn't stop the dumb smile on his face. "You were Lelouch."

Lelouch hit him on the arm, probably more for the dumb smile than for anything else. But he looked pleased. "How was that dream weird then? It seems nice enough to me."

"It was, really. I kinda liked you like that, even if you didn't seem too comfortable, and it felt like the first time all over again. But it was weird too – like it was you and not!you at the same time."

"Hmm…" Lelouch seemed to be taking that seriously, his eyes distant and thoughtful as he pondered that idea. Then he nodded to himself, as if coming to a conclusion and reached up, pulling Suzaku in close so that he could whisper against his ear.

"I'll do it."

Suzaku wasn't quite keeping up. "Huh?"

"I'll do it. I'll play the timid virgin and let you seduce me." Lelouch licked Suzaku's earlobe and nipped it before pulling back. "But I won't make it easy for you, Suzaku."

Suzaku would be lying if he said that didn't excite him, but he was also a little disappointed. For a moment, it seemed as though Lelouch might have understood the oddness of the dream, even experienced something like that himself. But that didn't make any sense, did it?

In any case, this game seemed like fun. "I don't want easy. All I want is you."

Lelouch grinned. "Then woo and win me, Suzaku."


	3. Lelouch: Post Mao

Suzaku dreamed of Lelouch.

This wasn't new or different. In fact, since meeting Lelouch two years ago, Suzaku had had more dreams with Lelouch than without. Suzaku didn't yet have the vocabulary or insight to describe what he felt around Lelouch, but he did know that the older boy was beautiful in a way that no one else was, and that Suzaku felt something for him that was different from what he felt for anyone else. After his mother's death, Suzaku had felt incredibly lonely, despite his father's attempts at keeping him happy, until Lelouch.

Lelouch was anti-loneliness. That made him special.

It was why sleeping with him was better than sleeping alone, why sitting on the floor with his shoulder pressed against Lelouch's knee as he did his homework was the most comfortable place in the world, and why Suzaku always woke up happy and rested when he dreamed of Lelouch.

But this dream was different.

Not bad. Just different. The setting was weird, a church or something with broken glass on the floor and a chess board set up like in Lelouch's living room, only attached to a strange scale rather than an old wooden coffee table. And Lelouch was different; colder, more distant, almost guilty when he looked at Suzaku.

Suzaku didn't really like it, but it was still Lelouch. And Lelouch made things better.

When it became clear that Lelouch wasn't going to speak or move, Suzaku did instead, walking over to him and looking up at him. "Hi, Lelouch!"

Lelouch laughed a little. "Of course. Of course I'd see you here after…" He shook his head. "Hello, Suzaku." He knelt down, reaching out to smooth over Suzaku's hair and Suzaku had been right; Lelouch _was_ making things better. "How are you?"

"Fine!" Suzaku beamed up at Lelouch, trying to bring out the warmth and affection he usually received from him. "And you?"

"Confused and a little bewildered." Lelouch sighed, letting his hand fall away from Suzaku's head. "Mao's words are still clearly affecting me."

_Mao_? Suzaku frowned. "Who?"

"Ah, of course. You're too young to have met him, right?" Lelouch muttered something about a sigh-key that Suzaku could hear but didn't make much sense. "In any case, I suppose asking about your father wouldn't be a great idea…"

"Why not?" Suzaku wanted to get Lelouch's mind off this strange key thing he was thinking of. It clearly upset him. "Dad's fine. He said we can't go to the beach tomorrow, even though it's Sunday, but maybe the park." Lelouch usually liked the park well enough. "Tamaki's busy, but Rivalz might be able to come too."

"Tamaki?" Lelouch didn't look any happier. In fact, he looked outright upset. "How do you know that name?"

"He's my friend." Suzaku reached up, pressing his hand to Lelouch's cheek and forehead, the way he'd seen Lelouch do to him when he'd been sick to test for fever. Nothing. "You feeling okay, Lelouch?"

Lelouch snorted. "Am I… you're ten, you're friends with a Black Knight–"

"A what?"

"This is too much." Lelouch stood abruptly. "I won't drag Suzaku into this fight, at least no more than he already has, and I _certainly_ would never drag an innocent like you! Suzaku isn't a soldier or an ally, he's a _friend_."

Something about that was wrong, even apart from the whole fight thing. Suzaku wasn't sure what he was to Lelouch, but he knew it was something more than 'friend'. Tamaki was a friend. Rivalz was a friend. Lelouch's Milly was his friend. Suzaku and Lelouch were something else. Something special. Even this Lelouch, part of Suzaku's dream, needed to know that.

But Lelouch was ignoring him now or, rather, impatiently ranting at him without waiting for a response.

"The past is the past. I won't dwell on it and I won't let Suzaku dwell on it either. You're a memory of a happier, simpler time. That might be tainted now, but under that stain, the memories are still intact, and still important. You were my first and only friend. You're still my best friend. I'm not letting some madman's ranting and your overdeveloped sense of guilt ruin that!"

"I'm not guilty!" Suzaku protested. "I'm not! And I… nothing will ever change about how I feel about you. I love you, Lelouch!"

Lelouch stared at him, his expression completely stunned as if Suzaku hadn't declared his love time and time again, promising to provide for and protect Lelouch with everything he had. Suzaku took advantage of his surprise to grab him around his neck and pull him in for a messy kiss, lip-to-lip.

After making a small, startled sound, Lelouch pushed Suzaku away. Which was pretty normal, actually. Suzaku grinned. "Love you, Lelouch."

Lelouch blinked slowly at him, as if the very thought hadn't even crossed his mind until that point. "I… I love you too, Suzaku."

Suzaku's grin widened as he threw his arms around Lelouch for a big hug. Lelouch sounded as if he'd just made a personal discovery, one that amazed and terrified him, but at least he didn't sound angry anymore.

And it wasn't as if Suzaku really knew anything apart from the fact that he'd just kissed Lelouch and Lelouch had told him he loved him and had gotten less angry. Delving deeper wasn't his thing yet.

He didn't even know what the word 'psyche' meant.


	4. Clovis: Waiting for Lelouch

"Where's Lelouch?"

Clovis's innocently curious question echoed in the large room. He'd just come back from his first year away at university and had been greeted by the entire family, even his father's current wife, and was currently catching up with all his siblings.

Except Lelouch.

In the silence that followed, Euphemia wrapped her arms around Nunnally, holding her close to her chest as Cornelia loomed protectively over them. Odysseus and Guinevere both looked away, awkwardly, and only Schneizel met Clovis's gaze.

"He's not here."

Clovis pouted. Lelouch was his only younger brother, the only person Clovis was able to tease with impunity. Their relationship wasn't the same reciprocal adoration of Lelouch and Euphemia and Nunnally, or the almost antagonistic rivalry Lelouch had started with Schneizel before his mother had been killed, but it was probably the closest thing to a normal, healthy sibling relationship either of them had.

And if Nunnally was here, it was unthinkable that Lelouch would be anywhere else.

"Where'd he go?" Clovis asked, curious. It wasn't like Lelouch had armies of friends like Euphemia or Schneizel. He was far more of a homebody, content with his few relationships and the slightly creepy but admittedly adorable co-dependent thing he had with Nunnally. "And when's he coming back?"

"We don't know." Cornelia's tone was hard and held a clear invitation to _stop __talking__ about __this_. "He left a few months ago."

_Months_? Clovis opened his mouth, only to shut it with an audible snap when he noticed how thoroughly miserable Nunnally looked, shaking lightly in Euphemia's arms. Schneizel stood and cocked his head towards the door before leaving. Clovis tried to think of something to say to make things better, an apology or explanation, but everything he could think of would only make it worse. So he didn't say anything as he followed after his older brother.

Schneizel took him aside, in one of the family offices and poured him a scotch. Clovis took the drink, just cradling it in his hand. "Schneizel, what…"

"I wasn't here either. And father refuses to speak of it, or allow any of us to talk about it outside the family." Schneizel poured his own drink and took a generous sip. "Apparently, with no provocation at all, Lelouch stole some money and ran off. The only person he spoke to was Euphy, getting a promise from her to protect Nunnally. He didn't talk to any one else."

Clovis didn't believe it. "That doesn't sound like him."

"No. It doesn't." Schneizel winced slightly as he finished his drink, pouring himself another, but not touching it. "If I'd been here…"

"You think you could have stopped him?" Clovis asked rhetorically. "We don't even know _why_ he ran in the first place!"

Schneizel shrugged with the same casual elegance that would have _so_ irritated Lelouch had he been there. Clovis, for the first time, felt his little brother's absence acutely. "Euphemia. Or Nunnally. He wouldn't have run if he'd been threatened himself – he would have fought. The only people he would have retreated for are our baby sisters."

Clovis was already nodding. "But wouldn't he stay to protect them? I mean… who else would he trust with them?" Not Clovis or Schneizel, that much was clear.

"Cornelia. He trusts her, as I would, as a protector of those she cares about. She would die or kill for them, and he knows that."

So would Clovis. In fact, if Clovis could have, he'd have protected Lelouch as well. Surely Lelouch had known that… right? Just because they fought occasionally, and there were things that bugged them about each other, that didn't mean that they weren't family. Right?

Maybe that meant something different for Lelouch than it did for Clovis.

"Who would threaten the girls, though?" Clovis asked aloud, not quite addressing Schneizel. Neither Odysseus nor Guinevere would have had the creativity, and neither Schneizel nor Cornelia would push that particular button of Lelouch's. "Not father…"

"He's become less involved or interested in Lelouch or Nunnally as his children since Marianne's death. Apparently, he talked with Lelouch a few times over the past year or so, with the latest conversation happening a week before Lelouch left."

Clovis shook his head. "He wouldn't have… right? I mean, he's always done well by us, even after our mother left him after his second marriage."

Schneizel shrugged. "Our mother's relationship with him wasn't quite that simple. Still, he hasn't taken a third mistress yet, so perhaps his relationship with Marianne wasn't that simple either. In any case, he's been disregarding Lelouch and Nunnally as anything other than tools since then. Perhaps Lelouch felt that he couldn't protect Nunnally anymore, that she would be better off with Cornelia and Euphy."

"…that doesn't sound like him."

"No." Schneizel sighed, downing the last of his drink. "It doesn't."


	5. Devoted Suzaku: Snapshots 20

Suzaku woke up, dressed in his knight's uniform, and reported for duty. At seventeen, he was required, every day, to report to Sir Jeremiah or Princess Cornelia before starting his daily duties. Once he finally turned eighteen, he'd be able to serve his prince on his own. It was something to look forward to.

As it was, he was given barely a cursory set of instructions before Sir Jeremiah sent him on his way. Suzaku bowed and hurried up to his master's room.

This was, if not Suzaku's favourite, then his second favourite part of his day. Prince Lelouch slept deeply, completely vulnerable and unguarded and angelic in his relaxed beauty.

Suzaku tended to come to Lelouch's rooms a few minutes early so that he could watch him for a few moments. Normally, Lelouch slept undisturbed until Suzaku forced himself to wake him. This morning, however, Lelouch was awake before Suzaku walked into the room, eyes closed, but breathing too quickly and shallowly to be asleep.

Rather than his usual habit of watching Lelouch from a distance, Suzaku immediately approached the bed and knelt down. "Your Highness."

There was a moment as Lelouch hesitated, clearly debating between maintaining the pretense and reacting to Suzaku's voice. Suzaku sighed. "Lelouch."

Lelouch opened his eyes and smiled and Suzaku couldn't breathe for a long moment, caught by how very lovely he looked. Lelouch remedied that by reaching up and pulling Suzaku down, pressing their lips together in a light kiss that gradually deepened into something much more. "Suzaku…"

The naked desire in Lelouch's voice was almost enough to undo him. But Suzaku had his duties. "You're meeting with your brother, His Highness Prince Schneizel, for breakfast this morning."

Lelouch groaned, but didn't stop smiling against Suzaku's lips. "We still have a few minutes, don't we?" The question was rhetorical, and Suzaku decided not to answer. "I wish you would have stayed last night."

"If anyone found out…"

"I don't care." Lelouch grabbed onto Suzaku's arm, suddenly fierce. "I just don't care, Suzaku. I want you. It was lonely after you left"

Suzaku groaned helplessly, and kissed Lelouch again, harder this time. Lelouch's honesty and affection was something he'd had to work hard for, something that hadn't come naturally to his prince at first. Lelouch had knighted Suzaku when they were both fifteen, despite the protests that Suzaku was too young, improperly trained, an Eleven. Suzaku, in return, had devoted himself to Lelouch and fallen in love with him in a matter of months.

Lelouch hadn't taken that well. He'd raised Suzaku up out of friendship and a fondness for the boy who'd helped him and Nunnally through the rough years after their mother's death. He'd refused Suzaku's advances, afraid of the repercussions, of what might happen to a knight who overstepped his bounds, of getting too close to someone who would inevitably be taken away once Lelouch was set to marry.

But Suzaku was persistent, and Lelouch couldn't deny the mutual attraction forever, and they were alone together a lot. One night, helping Lelouch change for bed had turned into crawling in with him, kissing and touching his naked body as Lelouch cried out for more. Even that hadn't stopped Lelouch from trying to keep an appropriate distance between them, but Suzaku was used to rejection and used to gently pressing his way past the barriers that Lelouch erected. In the end, Lelouch had conceded, pressing Suzaku down and straddling him, whispering his love into Suzaku's skin as they moved together.

Since then, there wasn't a day that went by that they didn't celebrate their newfound relationship at least once. Lelouch had gotten braver and even brash, standing closer to Suzaku than was appropriate and touching him, mere brushes of fingers against the back of Suzaku's hand or wrist that drove Suzaku crazy. When they were alone and spent, Lelouch would hold Suzaku and promise that, no matter what, he'd keep him. And then there was the strange ways his possessiveness came out. Like this morning.

"Harder." Lelouch panted against Suzaku's lips, pressing them together, using teeth. "I want everyone to see my kiss-bruised lips and wonder…"

Suzaku shuddered with desire and a thrill of anxiety. 'Everyone' meant Schneizel, Lelouch's older brother and mentor, and someone who'd been eying Suzaku speculatively since Lelouch had suddenly become a more cheerful and lively person, occasionally with a visible limp. He'd never said anything, but Suzaku was certain that he _knew_ and that Lelouch was flaunting this for some reason…

But royal intrigue wasn't within Suzaku's purview. He was merely Lelouch's devoted knight (at some point Suzaku had crawled onto Lelouch's bed and Lelouch's legs had spread for him, wrapping around Suzaku's hips) his _very_ devoted knight, and all he needed to be was obedient and protective.

Even so, Suzaku knew that if Lelouch ever hesitated again, ever denied their love or tried to end their relationship, he'd stop being an obedient servant and start being the brat that Lelouch knew and loved. The one who'd pushed his way into Lelouch's heart. The one Lelouch clung to and arched against and trembled under as he let himself go.

Lelouch's knight, friend, and lover. That was what Suzaku was.


	6. Lelouch: Emperor of Britannia

"The dreams are becoming untenable."

C.C. looked up, curiously. "How so?"

"In my latest dream, Suzaku was a child, and hadn't killed his father. I don't even know what that was supposed to mean, but I tire of it."

"Of the dreams? Or of him?"

Lelouch glared. "You think I was mistaken? That I should have taken another path?"

C.C. rolled her eyes. "You read too much into my words, boya. This was the only way you could have kept your word to both of us. Suzaku and I both craved death. You just gave him his gift sooner than you gave me mine."

"Gift?" Lelouch snorted. "He'll be forever remembered as a martyr, his sins covered up and whitewashed until the memory of him is as saintly as that of Euphy is monstrous. He wouldn't have wanted that."

"No, but he wanted peace. His life bought it, and you agreed to do anything within your power to keep it. And, as Emperor of Britannia, with a strong alliance with the U.F.N. and a somewhat weaker but still stable alliance with the E.U., that's quite a lot of power."

Lelouch nodded. "Still, there should have been another way…"

"There was. This was the way you two chose." C.C. sighed. "And I'd say your dreams were the work of your overactive guilty conscience, but they're actually a remnant from you activating your _geass_ in the World of C. At least some of them. The others are probably the work of your overly guilty conscience."

"Thanks for that."

C.C. smiled fondly at Lelouch when his back was turned. He could be such a brat. "If it makes you feel any better, the guilt kind of melts away once you acquire the _code_ and you realize nothing was really all that important in the first place."

"Suzaku was important. Nunnally _is_ important."

"If they're really that important, I'm sure that the _code_ won't change anything for you, then."

Lelouch stood up, pacing as if C.C.'s words had agitated him. "Without taking the _code_, is there anything I can do about the dreams?"

"Not really. You may be able to call them up, if you will it, but I don't think you can fend them off. That's what comes of wishing for Suzaku to always be by your side and then letting him get himself killed in the name of honour and peace and fluffy bunnies."

"I didn't…" Lelouch trailed off. "Fluffy bunnies. You know, I think he _would_ have died for that if he'd been given the chance."

"I'm glad he didn't. Just as glad as I am that I'm not left with him. He was rather annoyingly sincere."

Lelouch laughed. "I know. And sometimes, his eyes would get so _big_ with the force of his genuine belief that it actually hurt to tell him that he was so very, very wrong."

"But you did anyways."

"As a good friend should."

C.C. snorted. "Right. Well, like I said, the _code_ won't affect the dreams, but it will soften the parts of them that you find so painfully intolerable. Not that I'm pressuring you, just that you should know. In case you want to make a decision and that's a factor."

"No of course not. There's no pressure there _at all_. C.C., I already told you that I wanted to wait a few more years, until I'm old enough in appearance to be considered a full adult. You've lived centuries, what's a couple more years?"

There was a long moment of silence as C.C. considered that. "I'll try to make it an analogy that someone like you can understand. Imagine you're running on a treadmill."

Lelouch groaned.

"Exactly. The first few minutes aren't so bad, but it gets harder and harder to run as time goes on. You're tired, you're in pain, and you're bored. And you see that, according to your fitness instructor, that you have a minute left. What's a minute when you've already been running for half an hour? But it's a hard minute, the hardest one of your run, and you know full well that your instructor could stop it at any time and ease your pain. But he won't. Because he's a sadist."

"I'm not a sadist just because I'm trying to plan ahead for _eternity_. And I can't believe I was a fitness instructor in that analogy."

"I know. It fits, but uncomfortably, no?"

Lelouch sighed. "Give me some time to think about it, C.C."

C.C. smiled. "Time? But of course, Lelouch. For I am, and soon you will be, nothing _but_ time."

"And stop being so damn overdramatic."

"Coming from you, that's an amazing condemnation."


	7. Euphy: Post Lelouch

The weeks after Lelouch left were easy for Euphemia.

Nunnally was a wreck and needed to be taken care of. Cornelia was at turns furious with Lelouch and incredibly guilty that she hadn't been able to stop him from leaving. Odysseus and Guinevere gave lip-service offers of help, then disappeared, out of the way. Schneizel offered to come home from school, seemingly genuine although Cornelia still didn't accept it. Clovis didn't call, but that was typical of his carelessness.

Euphemia had been heartbroken, but useful for once. Cornelia's short temper made it impossible to trust her around the overly sensitive Nunnally, and Nunnally's fragility could trigger Cornelia into raging at the absent Lelouch. Euphemia had both the patience to wait out her older sister and the gentleness to tend to her younger. As Nunnally healed and Cornelia's anger cooled, Euphemia took care of them.

That was when things started getting difficult. The question of why Lelouch had called her and not Cornelia directly (or Nunnally for that matter) made things awkward. Her father called her into a private meeting and grilled her tirelessly over what Lelouch said and when and how he'd sounded. For the first time Euphemia understood as well as sympathized with Lelouch for leaving. The man was relentless.

Nunnally became cool to her, turning to Cornelia for the comfort and reassurance she couldn't trust Euphemia enough to ask for. Cornelia was the same as ever, still doting on her, but occasionally Euphemia could tell she was disappointed with the way she'd handled Lelouch. Schneizel wrote his exams early and came home to act as a support for Cornelia and a comfort for Nunnally.

Euphemia had recovered somewhat from Lelouch's departure, but now she was useless. It was much harder.

When school started after the summer break, things got better in that there were more distractions. She and Lelouch had been in different schools, so she didn't have to deal with questions of where her brother was. Nunnally was in the same school this year, having graduated from elementary, and started seeking Euphemia out again, shying away from her classmates and the other students. Euphemia could tell that they were just attracted to Nunnally, to her beauty and fragility, and wanted to be her friend and help take care of her, but she took care of Nunnally anyway, letting her little sister rely on her once again. It was nice to be wanted again.

Still, she gently encouraged Nunnally to make friends, slowly working with her little sister until she blossomed into a happy, if quiet, normal little girl. A few weeks later, she started taking self-defence lessons, with Cornelia's guidance, telling Euphemia in confidence that she wanted to make sure that she never hurt her loved ones by being taken away from them. She was still obviously stinging from her mother's death. Lelouch hadn't done her any favours by isolating her overprotectively and then leaving after that.

The first time Euphemia realized Lelouch wasn't coming back was his first birthday without him home. She hadn't even realized it up to that point, but she'd been half convinced that her father would have hunted him down by this point, dragging him back. It was a huge blow when she realized that, for whatever reason, that wasn't going to happen. Either Charles zi Britannia didn't care enough about his youngest son to bother looking for him, or he'd failed. The first option seemed much more likely than the second – Euphemia had never known her father to fail at anything. The very idea seemed impossible.

Lelouch was gone. He wasn't coming back. Not even for her. Not even for Nunnally.

Strangely enough, that seemed to help, making Euphemia's choices much easier. She continued to do what she could to maintain Nunnally's fond memory of her brother, but never let what Lelouch would have wanted stop either of them from making any choices. He wasn't here, so he had no say.

Nunnally appreciated the newfound freedom as well, although she didn't know where it came from. They grew close again, even closer than before, as Euphemia kept her promise to protect Nunnally and keep her safe. When Cornelia was sent off to fight overseas, Euphemia felt confident in her ability to keep Nunnally content and protected. And it was easy enough since, apart from that one conversation, their father never mentioned Lelouch again, and basically ignored Nunnally's existence completely.

It wasn't ideal, but it was constant and secure. And that was, in itself, somewhat comforting.

After a few years, life without Lelouch just became life. Euphemia rarely gave Lelouch a thought, although she could tell that Nunnally still thought of him often. There was just too much to do, too much life to live, to let herself remain hung up on a brother who had just walked out of her life without hesitation.

And then the door to one of the dorm rooms of a University opened in front of her and everything came back in a rush. Euphemia remembered everything she'd done, everything she'd felt from the moment Lelouch called her, quietly panicking and full of apologies, until now.

She should have been angry. Upset. Resentful. But she wasn't. She couldn't be. There wasn't any room for any of that as filled as she was with love and happiness and relief.

And when Lelouch said her name, held her, Euphemia knew. She'd missed him. Every year of her life that he wasn't with her, she'd missed him.

And she loved him. So much.


	8. Aware Suzaku: Snapshots 26

The sun was barely up, just enough to cast pink shadows through the room. Red sky in the morning… it would rain today.

That alone shouldn't have been enough to rouse Lelouch, so the soft groans and the fluttering eyelashes must have been from something else.

Suzaku smiled. Sometimes he loved being an early riser.

He propped his head up on one arm and engaged in one of his favourite spectator sports; Lelouch watching.

Lelouch was so lovely asleep. He was quiet, his responses suppressed, his face only twitching slightly compared to the myriad of expressions he wore awake. Suzaku's name fell from Lelouch's lips and Suzaku wondered if he was actually dreaming of him, or if he was dreaming of someone else with the same name.

Not that Suzaku could throw stones. He'd just woken up from a dream that featured a rather adorably petulant and self-deceiving Lelouch. It had been fun, even if not quite as fun as the dream Lelouch seemed to be having.

"_Suza-ku_…" Lelouch's moans were getting more distinct. He was waking up. "_Hnn… almost_…"

Lelouch's eyes shot open and he gasped for air as he arched against the bed, muscles tensing and then, gradually, relaxing.

"Nice dream?"

Lelouch laughed, breathless and sated. "You were there. And you, and you…"

Suzaku leaned over and kissed him. Lelouch could get remarkably silly post-coital. Not that there had been any actual coitus involved.

"What time is it?"

"Early." Suzaku kissed him again, then rolled over to check. "About six."

"Ugh." Lelouch curled up closer to him. "I am _not_ getting up for at least another hour." His hands wandered over Suzaku's chest and abdomen and lower, and Suzaku felt himself getting interested. "How were your dreams?"

Suzaku smiled and let his body react however it would. If Lelouch was serious about getting back to sleep, he wouldn't tease. Well, not for long at least. "Fine. Not as fulfilling as yours, perhaps, but interesting." As Suzaku had predicted and hoped, Lelouch got right down to business. "You were – _ah_ – right. There are those who… _hmm, Lelouch_… who think it's their own repressed psyche." Suzaku bit back a moan, wanting to drag this out a little longer. The room was glowing like it was on fire, and Lelouch looked quite literally radiant.

He seemed to be enjoying the visuals from his end as well, his lips turning up wickedly as he watched Suzaku react to his touch. "Does that mean you didn't get to…"

"_Ahh_…" Suzaku started moving his hips, just a little, making Lelouch do most of the work but making it clear he appreciated it. "No. Not this time. He was a little… _harder_… a little repressed."

Lelouch laughed darkly against Suzaku's neck. "My apologies." His wrist twisted cleverly and Suzaku had a split second to decide to hold back or not. He decided not to. No point, the sun had risen enough to be hidden behind the clouds, and the grey light wasn't nearly as inspiring as the fiery glow it had replaced.

When he opened his eyes again, Lelouch was contentedly sucking off his fingers and snuggling closer to him. Suzaku comfortably pulled his body flush up against him, using his nose to nudge Lelouch's hand away from his mouth so they could kiss.

"Mmm… we're going to need a shower."

"Not for a while yet." Suzaku ran his fingers through Lelouch's hair. "Hey, are you free this evening or…"

Lelouch shook his head, kissing at Suzaku's clavicle which meant he didn't want Suzaku to see his face. "I have a meeting."

Suzaku sighed. "Lelouch…"

"Don't."

"I just…" Suzaku sighed again. "Be careful, okay? I know you have C.C. and Kallen watching your back, but Zero has a lot of people gunning for him."

Lelouch had long stopped kissing, and was just resting his head against Suzaku's shoulder. That was nice enough on its own. "I know. More than even you imagine, perhaps." And _that_ was a scary idea, that Suzaku, even as a Knight of the Round, didn't know the full extent of the Britannian Empire's interest in Zero. "But it's under control. I promise not to take any risks that aren't absolutely necessary." He slid an arm around Suzaku, holding him. "I don't want to risk it. I don't want to lose _this_."

There wasn't much Suzaku could do or say to that other than hold Lelouch right back and close his eyes, breathing in their mingled scents until he heard Lelouch's breathing even out and he could fall asleep.


	9. LL: An Origin Story

The presence of a body lying next to Suzaku slowly eased its way into his awareness. He frowned. He'd gone to bed alone, he was sure, and Arthur would have bitten _something_ of his by now if the cat had crawled in later.

And Arthur didn't shiver uncontrollably.

Suzaku slowly rolled over to face the body, feeling a rush of relief at the familiar dark hair and thin, pale shoulders. "Lelouch?"

There was no answer, other than the continued shivering. Suzaku reached over and wrapped his arms around him, expecting to embrace something cold or wet. But it was like embracing nothing – not the usual warmth of Lelouch's body, nor the cool sterility of sheets or pillows, and certainly nothing that would explain the shivering. It…_ he_ felt like he was being kept at room temperature to Suzaku.

Suzaku tried again. "Lelouch?"

"Le… louch…" The shivering didn't stop, but just hearing Lelouch's voice was reassuring. "Lelouch." …or maybe not, if that was all he was going to say.

Suzaku was getting scared. He'd figured out this was a dream by now, but it wasn't a nice one. Part of him (most of him) wanted to wake up, but he couldn't just _leave_ Lelouch here like this, even if this wasn't really Lelouch. And "here" didn't really exist. Suzaku frowned; did that make "here" real to this "Lelouch"?

Either way… "Lelouch, yeah. That's your name." Suzaku tugged at Lelouch. "Roll over, c'mon…"

It took some doing, but eventually Suzaku got Lelouch on his back. It was really only at that point that Suzaku noticed Lelouch was naked, but that mattered far less than the vacant expression in his eyes.

Or the large gash on his chest. It wasn't bleeding, but it was still open. It looked like it hurt.

"Lelouch, hey." Suzaku lightly slapped his cheeks, wanting a reaction, any reaction. "Lelouch, it's me. It's Suzaku. _Lelouch_!"

Lelouch blinked and finally focused on Suzaku's face. "Su… zaku."

"Yeah." Suzaku smiled, relieved. "Yeah, it's me."

"Live… on…"

It might be nonsense, but at least it was new nonsense, rather than just repeating something Suzaku had said. "Yeah, okay. I will."

Lelouch laughed and it sounded wet, like as if he had a really bad cold. "Yes, you will." He coughed for a long moment, then pushed against the bed, trying to sit up. Suzaku helped.

"You okay?"

This time the laugh was drier, but just as unamused. "I suppose that would depend on your definition of 'okay'." Lelouch lightly touched his wound. "I would have thought this would have been fixed."

"It looks pretty bad."

"Fatal, I'd say." Lelouch smiled. "Not immediately, though. That wouldn't be dramatic enough." He looked at Suzaku. "How old are you?"

"Eleven."

Lelouch shifted, guarding his wounded side, but not wincing. "A good age. As long as you can turn twelve." He smiled wryly. "Of course, one might say the same of eighteen." Suzaku frowned, confused, and Lelouch's smile gentled. "Never mind. I apologize for earlier. I had rather expected not to dream."

"But this is _my_ dream."

Lelouch shook his head. "It's our dream, Suzaku. I suppose this answers the philosophical question as to whether the dead dream." He flinched, grasping at his side as the wound closed itself, leaving an angry red scar behind. His hand moved from the scar, up his chest to his throat. "Or perhaps not…"

Suzaku gasped as another gash appeared just over Lelouch's collar bone, two curved cuts and a dip just over his breast bone. "Lelouch…"

"That answers that question." Lelouch looked irritated as he dropped his hand. The wound looked less angry than the other one, the redness not of underlying flesh but almost sparkly. Again, there was no blood.

Suzaku reached out and Lelouch watched him carefully, but didn't move away as Suzaku pressed his fingers against the bird-like mark on his throat. "What…"

"It doesn't matter." Lelouch smiled reassuringly as Suzaku stroked the strange looking, but normal feeling, skin. "It's nothing that concerns you."

Suzaku crawled into Lelouch's lap, gently nosing at the mark, smelling it. It smelled normal too, like Lelouch. Lelouch's hands settled awkwardly on his shoulders, as if he didn't know how to hug properly. Suzaku looked up at him. "Does it hurt?"

"Not physically. Why are you in my lap?"

"'s comfy." It wasn't, exactly. Lelouch still didn't feel warm and cuddly like he usually did. Suzaku rested his head against Lelouch's shoulder. "Pet my hair."

After a moment's hesitation, Lelouch did just that. That made it a bit better. "I wonder why…"

"Hmm?"

"Nothing." Lelouch snorted. "Do you realize that in eight years you'll be older than me?"

"…I'm pretty sure that's not how it works."

"That's not how it's _supposed_ to work, no." Lelouch's smile faded. "It'll only take three years for Nunnally to be older."

"Who?"

"Never mind." Lelouch's petting was getting better. "I suppose my more immediate future is more important right now."

Suzaku looked up. "Why?"

Lelouch shrugged. "Well, if everything went according to plan, I now have two options. Either jumping out of a floating fortress before it breaks orbit or burning up with it on re-entry." That sounded… "Don't worry, I'll be fine."

Lelouch sighed and threaded his fingers through Suzaku's hair, petting him properly for the first time. "No matter what happens, I'll always be fine."

Well. That was reassuring. It was odd that Lelouch sounded so sad when he said it, though.


	10. Guinevere: Useful

"Hold still, Lelouch!" Guinevere ordered impatiently. She'd accepted that it was her turn to face the little monster's teachers, but she refused to do so at the side of a scruffy kid. In her experience Lelouch cleaned up well, generally, and if he'd just _hold still_, she could fix his hair and he'd be less of an embarrassment.

But Lelouch wasn't interested. To be fair, he hadn't been interested in much since his mother's death. But that had been months ago, and if he was over it enough to go back to school and bring his little friends home and get in everyone's way, he was over it enough to brush his damn hair.

Frankly, Guinevere didn't really see why her father had needed Marianne in the first place. True, she was certainly more vivacious than Cornelia and Euphemia's mother, but she was really just a step above the help, and had never really seemed to know her place.

And now she was dead, leaving her two children to be cared for by others. It was horrifically irresponsible. Not the dying part, Marianne could hardly be blamed for that, but she hadn't done a thing to prepare for that eventuality, leaving her meager possessions to be divided amongst her family and children, and the children themselves in the hands of their father's family.

The Lamperouges had attended the funeral, offered their condolences (to Lelouch, mainly, as if a child would be able to appreciate them) and left. So much for family supports.

The Britannia family, at least, had the decency to provide for their own, and it was important to demonstrate that publicly. In forums like parent-teacher interviews. You never knew who might be watching.

Which was why Lelouch needed his damn hair to look presentable.

"Ah, Lelouch!" Guinevere looked up at the tentative call, not recognizing the boy, but easily recognizing the woman with him. Katherine Halliburton. Socialite and trophy wife to one of the local oil barons. Guinevere racked her brain to remember if the boy was hers or from one of Mark Halliburton's previous marriages or liaisons. Either way, Katherine was someone Guinevere should definitely be making connections with.

She nudged Lelouch. "Answer your friend."

Lelouch sighed and pasted on one of his more charming smiles. "Rolo! Nice to see a friendly face."

Rolo walked over and Katherine followed, indicating that either his was her son, or she had some maternal instincts towards him. Guinevere placed a hand on Lelouch's shoulder and smiled, making sure to keep her eyes warm as she greeted them.

"Good morning! It's so nice to meet one of Lelouch's friends."

Katherine's eyes flickered as she tried to place Guinevere's face. "Indeed. Rolo so rarely has people over, I was beginning to worry about him."

Lelouch spoke up before Guinevere could. "I'm free after this." He turned a warm smile on Rolo. "It's been a while since we've just hung out together."

Rolo actually flushed with pleasure, shooting an anxious look at his mother.

Guinevere watched as Katherine tried to come up with a reason to say 'no'. It was kind of sad, watching her sabotage her own son. As much as Guinevere considered Lelouch something of a bother, she would never have tried to actively undermine his relationships. Lelouch reached out and took Rolo's hand, and Rolo very nearly clung to him.

Katherine sighed. "Oh, very well." She turned to Guinevere. "If you like, you should come over as well. Some of the girls get together on occasion for cards and gossip. Charles zi Britannia's eldest daughter would be more than welcome."

Guinevere smiled. Getting an invitation to a gossip party was quite the trophy, considering she'd only come to hear how Lelouch was coping in school after the death of his mother. "It would be my pleasure."

They walked into the school together, with the boys following behind them, chatting about inconsequential things. Guinevere made Katherine laugh a few times, and Katherine returned with her own brand of deceptively sharp jibes under the appearance of gentle humour. They were well on their way to being fast acquaintances, if not precisely friends.

Her father would be proud.

Guinevere and Lelouch parted ways with the Halliburtons at Rolo's class, planning on meeting up again as soon as they were finished.

Finally, Lelouch had proven some kind of worth.


	11. Dutiful Suzaku: Snapshots 32

Suzaku thought he'd dealt with the aftermath of Zero Requiem fairly well. He wore the outfit that felt like a prison and funerary garb at the same time, performed all his duties to the utmost of his abilities, and even had most of the world convinced he actually was Zero.

There were those who knew better. Nunnally, Kallen, Toudou, Kaguya… but they were all discreet enough to keep that to themselves, understanding what he and Lelouch had gone through for the sake of this lie.

As summer turned to fall, however, Suzaku noticed a pattern. More of a trend, really.

He was sleeping more.

He used to easily get by on five hours a night, but now he found himself in bed for more than eight. He certainly didn't feel more rested than before, indeed, he would occasionally wake up with a headache from sleeping too long, but he couldn't seem to stop.

It wasn't seasonal, and Suzaku was pretty sure he wasn't depressed, but he couldn't stop sleeping.

It didn't help that he dreamed, more often than not, about Lelouch. Alive, happy, occasionally completely different than Suzaku had remembered him, but still Lelouch. He understood, to an extent, the appeal of _refrain_ now – it wasn't just an escape, although that was significant, it was also the chance to lie to yourself that a different future than the one you were living in was possible.

That lie was what was addictive, and the return to the real world was always a let-down. It made Suzaku wonder if it was worth it.

C.C. wasn't much help. She'd vaguely explained the dreams to Suzaku during a visit in early autumn, although Suzaku got the impression the vagueness was mostly because she didn't understand it well either. But Suzaku hadn't mentioned his new sleeping patterns, or how seeing Lelouch in his dreams was both a soothing balm over how much he missed Lelouch and also something keeping the wound fresh and tender.

Not that it mattered. Suzaku didn't have much control over the dreams until they started, and then the thought of purposefully cutting his time with Lelouch short hit a little too close to home.

On Lelouch's birthday, however, all hesitation or questions around that ceased. It had been a hard day, for both him and Nunnally, despite the fact that for the rest of the world it passed without note. Nunnally asked for cake for dessert, and took her supper in her room, inviting Zero. They'd lit a candle and sung softly for Lelouch. He would have been nineteen. The last birthday Suzaku had celebrated with him had been his seventeenth, at a time when Suzaku hadn't had any idea that Lelouch was Zero and Zero wasn't a huge problem.

They'd technically had two parties – the first one with the student council that turned out disastrously (but fun), and the second one with just him and Nunnally when they got Lelouch home (and hosed down. It really _had_ been a disaster).

That second party had been more like this one – a small intimate gathering, in Lelouch's bedroom rather than Nunnally's, with cake and singing and the hint of nostalgia. The main difference this time, apart from Lelouch's absence, was the tinge of guilt and grief between Nunnally and Suzaku.

After leaving the Empress's quarters, Suzaku hesitated, torn between visiting his private gym to work off the nervous energy that was apparently his way of manifesting grief and just going to bed, closing his eyes and dreaming of Lelouch.

He didn't hesitate long.

For the first time in months, sleep was a long time coming. It was past midnight when Suzaku finally managed to drift off into an unsettled sleep.

Lelouch was there.

Suzaku knew he couldn't regret a single moment he spent asleep with Lelouch the moment he saw him, seated on a bed, waiting for him.

"Happy birthday."

And when Lelouch looked up and smiled, Suzaku felt something within his chest loosen. The grief was still there, slightly dulled by the passage of months since Lelouch's death, eased by watching Lelouch's world unfold just as he'd planned, but renewed slightly in the bittersweet ceremony he and Nunnally had shared. But this time it was coupled with a sort of comfort, the knowledge provided by C.C. that there were other Lelouchs, alive and well, who smiled when they saw him and reached out to touch him and sighed into his kisses.

And even if they didn't… Even if they were affectionate but not interested, or friendly but distant, or even arrogant and snide, they were still Lelouch. And even if they lived in completely different worlds, in completely different lives…

At least they _lived_.


	12. Lelouch: Now with breasts!

"…"

"What?"

"You…"

"_What_?"

"You've got boobs."

"Very observant." Lelouch (at least that's who Suzaku _thought_ this was) crossed his… her… both arms across her… his… chest. Breasts.

"Are you really a girl?"

Lelouch glared. "Are you really that stupid?"

Suzaku grinned. "That was mean."

"I'll take that as a yes." But Lelouch was smiling now too, a little. "What are you, ten?"

"Twelve!" Suzaku strongly objected and Lelouch laughed. It was a little louder and higher than Suzaku's Lelouch's laugh, but it held the same fondness and amusement. "Can I touch them?"

Lelouch sat heavily on the bed and let her forehead fall into the open palm of her hand. "Why did I expect anything more," she muttered under her breath before lifting her head and fixing Suzaku with a glare. "No. You may not touch them, you little perv."

"Kay." Suzaku moved towards her. "Can I sit in your lap?"

"No. …you can sit beside me."

Suzaku sat down on the bed, curling his legs underneath him. "Can I kiss you?"

"I see we're back to the little perv part of this conversation."

Suzaku pouted, but he could tell Lelouch wasn't falling for it. "Just a kiss. 'Snot that big a deal."

"Then it's not that big a deal that the answer is no," Lelouch said with impeccable calm and irrefutable logic. Usually Suzaku could fight back with cuteness and charm, but this Lelouch didn't seem to be willing to buy that.

Still, it was worth a shot. Suzaku made his eyes as big as they could go and let his lower lip quiver slightly. "I'm just a kid, and you're being all mean, and…"

"Quit that." Lelouch glared at him. "You're more than old enough to know better. Does your Lelouch let you get away with stuff like that?"

"…my Lelouch?" Suzaku frowned.

"The one from your world," Lelouch explained. "The one you see when you're awake, rather than the rest of us who are only connected to you through our dreams."

Suzaku's eyes widened. "Oh! _That's_ what's happening." He thought about it for a moment. "So that means you're from another world? Like an alien?"

Lelouch sighed. "Let's go with that."

"And those are alien boobs."

"Suzaku…"

"Do they shoot lasers?"

Lelouch laughed, then slapped a hand over her mouth. "I should know better than to encourage you." She tried to regain her glare, but it was severely weakened by the fact that she was still clearly amused.

"You're really pretty."

…and also that she was now blushing a little. "Thank you."

"My Lelouch is pretty too, but he's… differently pretty." Although less different than Suzaku would have expected – this Lelouch had softer features, longer hair and, well, boobs (and hips, Suzaku had noticed them when she was standing, but they were less noticeable while she was seated), but overall the resemblance was uncanny. She really did seem like a female version of Suzaku's male Lelouch.

Lelouch reached out and tucked a curl of Suzaku's hair behind his ear. It was an intimate gesture, one that spoke of affection, and Suzaku leaned into it until Lelouch snapped her hand back as if shocked at what she'd done. "I… well, I'm not so sure he'd appreciate such a compliment, as a guy."

Suzaku shrugged, watching Lelouch's face closely. "He's pretty used to it by now." He leaned closer. "Hey, if you're an alien-Lelouch, do you have an alien-Suzaku?"

Lelouch's blush, which had almost completely faded, returned with a vengeance. "Ah, yes. He's a… friend."

"Just a friend?" Suzaku asked, oddly disappointed.

Lelouch shrugged awkwardly. "He's my sister's knight and it… it would be awkward and we've never exactly…" She shook herself. "Yes, Suzaku. He's just a friend."

Suzaku frowned. "That's too bad. Is that why you didn't want to kiss me?"

"What? No! You're _twelve_, you little brat." Lelouch grinned at him, with a cheerfulness Suzaku wasn't sure she really felt. "I'm hardly _that_ desperate."

Suzaku wondered if what Lelouch was experiencing was a one-sided love, or if she and her Suzaku were both just too stupid to do anything about a mutual affection. Either way, it sucked. He shifted closer to her and wrapped his arms around her in a gentle hug, tucking his head under her neck. After a moment, Lelouch's arms awkwardly enfolded him in return, and Suzaku smiled.

"Lelouch?"

"Yes?"

"You smell good too."

"That's… kind of creepy, actually."

"Especially between your boobs."

Lelouch shoved him off and Suzaku couldn't hold back his laughter. She looked so _indignant_!

"You… are a total and utter _brat_."

Suzaku grinned. At least Lelouch had shaken off whatever gloom had come over her. "Yup!"


	13. Tamaki: Troubled Kids

Tamaki was widely agreed, by teachers and caregivers alike, to be an utter terror. By five he'd been banned from most daycare centers in his neighbourhood. When his father had still lived at home and both he and Tamaki's mother worked, Tamaki ran through over a dozen babysitters a year. When his father moved away to try to find a more stable job, the kind that wouldn't get him deported, Tamaki's mother was forced to leave her son home alone for hours if none of his friends' parents could watch over him.

He was seven at the time.

He wasn't a bad kid, per se, just intractable. He was always certain he was right, and no amount of arguments or threats or punishments could get him to back down. It got him in trouble at school as well, and earned him more enemies than friends.

But he still had friends. His best friend was Rivalz, who he'd met while saving him from a bully. His other best friend was Suzaku, who'd saved them both from the bully's older brothers. Tamaki secretly thought Rivalz was smarter than him (and Suzaku) and Suzaku was stronger than him (and Rivalz) but he never admitted either belief out loud.

It gave him two homes for him to go to when his mom couldn't watch him. Rivalz's house was closer, and his mom was there more often than Suzaku's dad was, but by the time Tamaki was eight he was spending more time at Suzaku's than anywhere else other than school.

With what was, Tamaki was convinced, the harshest, strictest, coldest babysitter _ever_, Lelouch Lamperouge.

As stubborn as Tamaki was, he'd met his match and then some in Lelouch. Lelouch never hit any of them, which was a change from a lot of the babysitters Tamaki had had to deal with (and, frankly, his parents) but he could talk the ears off an elephant if you crossed him.

Rivalz respected him in a way Tamaki rarely saw from him, and Suzaku practically worshipped the ground he walked on. Tamaki had to admit that Lelouch had an admirable way of shrugging off stupid things that didn't matter (like staying out later than agreed upon, or respecting his elders in general) but when Lelouch decided something was important (like not taking things from other kids, or lying about where he'd been when he was late) he'd make sure Tamaki paid for it, either by withholding privileges (like the chance to choose where they went after school) or simply lecturing him over right and wrong until he felt like Tamaki had absorbed the lesson.

Sometimes that took hours.

He was also irritatingly even-handed, punishing Rivalz and even Suzaku the same way and to the same degree. True, they didn't get punished as often as Tamaki, but they didn't get themselves in trouble as often either.

When Tamaki was nine, the divorce came through and his mother explained that his father wasn't coming home. Since this was the first Tamaki had heard of it, he was immediately furious and ran out into the street, despite the fact that it was after dark and, frankly, past his bedtime.

He literally ran into Lelouch who'd dressed in dark colours and blended into the shadows of the poorly lit streets. Lelouch landed, sprawled gracelessly on his ass, as Tamaki continued barrelling forward, landing practically on top of him, and suddenly Tamaki needed to take his anger out on someone. Lelouch's lips parted in surprise, forming the first syllable of Tamaki's name, and Tamaki hit him.

It was at a bad angle, and off-balance with no weight behind it, which was fortunate because it was a closed-fist punch to Lelouch's jaw. They both lay there, stunned in the aftermath and Tamaki realized what, exactly, he'd done.

His breathing was ragged, and he could feel the cool night air brush against the tear tracks on his face, and he met Lelouch's gaze, trying to see what would happen next.

It was hard to see details in the dim lamplight, but Tamaki was close enough to read Lelouch's eyes. They were cold. No anger, or pain, or anything other than a cold calculated look that made Tamaki's blood freeze in his veins. It was like Lelouch was looking at him as something inhuman, something lower than low. When Lelouch shifted to raise a hand, Tamaki flinched but otherwise left himself unprotected. He deserved whatever Lelouch was going to do to him.

Lelouch hugged him.

"What happened, Shinichiro?"

The sound of his first name, that only his mother and father (…ex-father?) had ever used, brought everything crashing down on Tamaki, and he burst into tears, clinging to Lelouch like a lifeline.

He never told Lelouch about the divorce, and Lelouch never really asked. He dropped Tamaki off at his home and they never spoke of it again. But every time Tamaki saw Lelouch reach down and touch Suzaku, or Suzaku rushing to Lelouch for a hug or crawling into Lelouch's lap, he never thought twice about it. To him, that was what Lelouch was about, it was just that Suzaku needed it more than Tamaki or Rivalz.

Comfort.


	14. Fake Chapter 157 from Snapshots

On July 9th, at 11:59pm, Suzaku Kururugi was fatally trampled in a freak wildelope stampede (a new crossbreed of antelopes and wildebeasts) and died.

Hence the "fatally".

...

The end!

OoO-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-OoO

...I didn't warn for character death.

Yes. I'm sure _that's_ what your readers are going to focus on.

They might! I did promise to warn for triggers...

I believe you also promised them sex.

That wasn't a _promise_ so much as an _understanding__._ Except for some readers...

Exactly.

Hey, who are you anyways? How did you get in here? Where am I?

I'm evil-elarielf.

I though _I_ was evil-elarielf.

No, you're just elarielf. Being evil.

I see. Nice goatee. Are you from another dimension? _Are we going to have cross-dimensional sex_?

...you _really_ like the goatee, don't you?

It's spiffy.

Thank you. Now don't you feel better about killing Suzaku off?

Crap. Almost forgot about that. Well... really, if you look back, it was foreshadowed pretty early on.

No it wasn't.

No. It wasn't. But it _could_ have been.

...

Look, Suzaku started out this story as a ten-year-old and now I have to write a sex scene? He's a kid!

He's almost the same age as he was in canon.

...he's a kid then too.

Get over yourself. Besides, you've already written the next chapter. You've already written the next _twenty_ chapters.

They're short chapters! Except for some of them. _Alright, fine_. But in return, I demand one more angsty arc.

Hey, _I'm_ fine with killing Suzaku off. Evil-elarielf, remember?

I'm not talking to you. Or your sexy goatee.

Nufufu...

Out of random curiosity, is this against FFN's TOS or Guidelines?

Lemme check.** "Entries not allowed:** Non-stories: lists, bloopers, polls, previews, challenges, _author notes_, and or two : comments inserted in between the flow of a copied with non-historical and non-fictional characters: actors, musicians, and form of interactive entry: choose your adventure, second person/you based, Q&As, and /script format and keyboard _dialogue based entries_." Yup! Seems against both 1 and 6, although you've written dialogue-based entries before shamelessly.

That was an experiment.

This whole fic was an experiment. Or several, one after another, unending as your attention span wandered from one idea to the next.

...yup! Also, I was trying to get more reviews than "Dauntless".

How'd that go for you?

TOTAL FAILURE! \o/

D'you think that might have something to do with "Dauntless" being well-written, well-structured and not a rambly series of things that struck you as a good idea at 4am?

Hey, that's what time it is now!

...that actually explains a lot.

In any case, this isn't _just _an author's note, there was some fic. Suzaku died, remember?

I think everyone remembered that.

Just checking! Sooo... what you're saying is I should fess up to this being a troll chapter and replace it Monday morning, first thing.

With sex.

We'll see.

OoO-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-OoO

**Just messing with you.** The real chapter 157 is up over at Snapshots. Honestly, I was surprised at how few people were upset with me over this. :p

(PS: Coffee after 10pm when you're caffeine-sensitive is still a _bad_ idea.)


	15. Platonic Suzaku: Snapshots 48

Suzaku had died with Lelouch's blood on his hands. Zero, at that moment, had been reborn into a new body.

With Lelouch's blood on his hands.

It was an intimate relationship they had shared. Closer than most friends, closer than most lovers, frankly. Suzaku thought of Lelouch as family – the kind of connection that was formed without your own will, that you could never erase, not even if you wanted to. His _geass_, not only to _live_ but to serve as a physical representation of truth and justice for Lelouch's sake, was a strong one, and one that Suzaku had no intention of ever dodging or avoiding.

But none of that meant that he wanted to have sex with Lelouch.

"For the _last time_, it was never like that between us."

The Lelouch Suzaku was with rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on. Just because you both were so repressed and too afraid to explore your feelings doesn't mean they weren't there."

"No. The fact that they weren't there does, however." Suzaku wasn't too concerned about this Lelouch's advances. Most of the time, Suzaku could just talk down the more amorous Lelouchs, but there had been times when that hadn't worked. It was those occasions that Suzaku was glad that he was about seven times as strong as Lelouch, and made sure to keep that in mind in the dreamworld, which was less about actual physical strength and more about the strength of convictions.

Although, if that last one was absolute, this Lelouch would have probably talked Suzaku into sex by now. He was _certain_ Suzaku wanted it and was just denying his basic urges and wishes.

Which was kind of bullshit. Lelouch and Suzaku had offered each other every kind of comfort and compassion they could in their final months together before Zero Requiem. They'd even slept together, with C.C., curled up like puppies or scared children. Suzaku had never wanted Lelouch sexually in that whole time, and Lelouch hadn't seemed to want either him or C.C. as he slept between them.

If Lelouch had wanted it… if _his_ Lelouch had wanted it, Suzaku probably would have had sex with him. Similarly, if Suzaku had asked, Lelouch would probably have agreed. And it probably would have been good. But the idea hadn't even crossed their minds.

And yet here he was, in a dreamworld mix of his and this Lelouch's mind, fighting off advances. Again. Suzaku honestly felt like he owed this Lelouch, and all the other Lelouchs he'd met in his dreams, nothing – _they_ hadn't died for his world, he hadn't passed on their mantle to Suzaku, and this Lelouch in particular didn't seem able to take 'no' for an answer.

It was frustrating, but Suzaku had to admit that last trait was pretty typically Lelouchian.

Lelouch sighed. "Look, just close your eyes and pretend I'm someone else then. I'll kiss however you want and… how about this – I'll suck you off. That way you don't have to touch me at all."

Okay, that was just disgusting, the very idea of using Lelouch like that. "I'm not going to–"

"Anyone you want. Kallen, C.C., Euphy…" Suzaku sucked in a sharp breath – that was _so_ out of line… "Ah." Lelouch smiled. "So it was Euphy."

"Why are you doing this, Lelouch?"

"Because my Suzaku's _dead_ and I'll never get to see him again. We'll never laugh together or argue or spend hours seeing who can drive the other one out of his mind first. No matter what you _think_ you've lost, I lost everything the day Suzaku died."

Suzaku felt a wrench of guilt. He missed Lelouch, he really did, and he missed Euphemia, but there had been at least a year between their losses. If he'd lost them both at the same time…

But. "What about Nunnally?"

Lelouch closed his eyes. "Alright. _Almost_ everything. And I still have Euphy and she's been… wonderful. But they're different. I can't rely on them because I need to protect them, to keep them safe. You were… Suzaku was the only one I could truly count on."

Suzaku nodded. "Fine. Come here." Lelouch stepped forward, probably thinking he just looked cautious, but really giving off an air of timidity. Which was fine, Suzaku was more than happy to have a slightly timid Lelouch rather than a pushy one.

Lelouch stiffened as Suzaku's arms wound around him. Suzaku couldn't (wouldn't) pretend lust, but this degree of affection was certainly tolerable. "You'll find someone, one day. Someone you can trust and rely on again. And until then…" He lifted up a fist and noogied lightly at Lelouch's hair. "Stop being a demanding, entitled brat."

Lelouch squawked and swatted at Suzaku's hands, his expression a picture of complete indignation as he stumbled back. Suzaku grinned at the utter loss of composure, the way Lelouch so quickly transformed from an imperious control freak to a normal, if somewhat ungraceful, young man.

"You're a total ass."

"Still hot for me?" Suzaku asked, raising his fists, his wrists cocked too awkwardly for punching, but at just the right angle for more noogies.

Lelouch rolled his eyes, an involuntary smile flitting across his lips. "Yes. But I'll restrain myself. Somehow."

Suzaku's grin widened. "Then I think we're good."

"I'm just going to jump the next Suzaku I meet."

Suzaku laughed. "I'm sure you will." And chances were the next Lelouch Suzaku met would have preconceived ideas about their relationship. But they'd work through it.

They always did.


	16. Lelouch: Captive Prince

The gentle sound of rain, the muted chatter of soft voices in the distance, the scent of pine and fire and fresh air.

Suzaku had no freaking idea what the heck this was supposed to be.

None of the doors opened properly. He was used to sliding doors – Toudou-sensei's dojo had them – but they were everywhere here, wooden and paper and so delicate that Suzaku was afraid to even touch them.

It turned out he didn't have to. As he stood outside the door, fretting, it opened for him.

He hesitated for a moment, then stepped in, looking around.

The first thing he saw was the double futon with two pillow-like things on the floor in the center of the room. Then the flickering lights from the oil lanterns, the small desk covered in papers, and finally, the dark-haired person who'd slid open the door, kneeling with his (or her) hands folded neatly on her (or his) lap, head bowed.

"Uh… hi?" Suzaku ventured.

"_Your bed is warmed, Suzaku-sama_."

That voice… even speaking in Japanese… "Lelouch?"

The person bowed lower, exposing a graceful nape, and Suzaku knew… "Lelouch, what are you doing?"

"_Whatever you like, Suzaku-sama_."

"When did you learn…" Oh. This was a dream. Suzaku knelt down in front of Lelouch. "Hey. _I'm a different Suzaku than yours_."

Lelouch's head shot up and his eyes narrowed. "Oh. _That's_ why you…" He frowned. "You're a kid."

"And you're bowing and scrimping in front of me," Suzaku pointed out.

Lelouch stood up, brushing off his knees. "You wouldn't understand." He moved towards the bed, smiling faintly at something. "The tea I prepared for your… my Suzaku is done. Would you like some?"

Suzaku stood and followed him. "Sure. But this isn't real." He wasn't sure Lelouch really understood that.

"I know. We're asleep and dreaming and I'm a fucking servant even here. I get it." Suzaku gaped at Lelouch, more than a little shocked to hear that from him. "Sorry. It's just… not easy."

"Then why…"

"If I wasn't, I'd be dead. Being Suzaku's _pet_ is the only thing that's keeping me alive, after Nunnally was ransomed back to Britannia for Japan's independence," Lelouch explained sharply. "Suzaku has to pretend to be infatuated with me to stave off my execution, and I have to pretend to be something lower than I am, and neither of us are very happy about that."

Suzaku, naturally, focused on the most important information given. "Your Suzaku has to _pretend_ to be infatuated with you?"

Lelouch sighed. "Of course. You're one of _those_." He fell gracefully to his knees and poured two cups of tea. "We've had sex three times, each time because we knew someone was watching and we needed to put on a good show. The entire time, Suzaku was apologizing to me, while trying to sound like he was caught in the throes of ecstasy." Lelouch glared at the tea. "It felt good. For both of us. That was part of the problem. When you're a kid and you're having sex for the first time, it's easy to confuse that with love."

"…he doesn't love you?"

"He does. And I love him. But not like that. And the fact that we were forced to find that out in that way…" Lelouch shuddered. "There are some things friends are better off not knowing about each other."

Suzaku sat down beside Lelouch and took his cup. "Are you in love with someone else?"

"Who, me? No." Lelouch laughed. "I barely get to look anyone in the eye. But Suzaku… he's engaged, to Sumeragi Kaguya. And they make a lovely couple. And she thinks that he'd rather fuck me than be with her, and she has to think that for the sake of my very life. It's not fair."

"No," Suzaku agreed. He'd thought the same thing himself, often. Almost always when things were out of his control. He never thought he'd see things get out of Lelouch's control, though. "Can you do anything about it?"

Lelouch shook his head. "I have no power, no influence over anyone but Suzaku. And if he decided that he'd be better off without me, there'd be nothing I could do."

"There has to be something." It was disturbing, seeing Lelouch like this – the same Lelouch (…almost) who never let anything faze him, who looked at impossibilities as challenges and challenges as minor irritations. "Can't you do _something_?"

"No, I can't!" Lelouch snapped. "I have no family, no allies, no friends, and I'm surrounded by people who would love to see me dead. All I have is you… is Suzaku. And our bond of nothing more than friendship, an obligation and a debt that I will never be able to repay."

"…do you love him?" Lelouch glared, and Suzaku immediately clarified. "Like _that_. Do you like it when he holds you, when he has to touch you to pretend?" He shifted, facing Lelouch with a serious expression. "When he kisses you, does your heart race?"

Lelouch smiled, gently. "No. Or if it does, it's because I'm worried that our act will seem like an act." He reached out and stroked Suzaku's cheek. "But you're different. Your issues aren't ours. Whatever I feel for my Suzaku, that has nothing to do with how you feel. Or your Lelouch."

Suzaku flushed. Was he so obvious? "I love him."

"Alright."

"But if he was just pretending… I'd hate that." Lelouch frowned. "Are you _sure_ your Suzaku doesn't love you?"

"He doesn't… we're not…" Lelouch looked genuinely disturbed. "I thought I was."

Suzaku nodded. "When you wake up, you should ask. Because there are some things friends shouldn't know. And then there are some things they should."

"…I'll keep that in mind. Thank you, Suzaku."


	17. Kinks and Preferences

Suzaku and Lelouch's sexual preferences, kinks, fetishes, habits etc… in Snapshots:

First of all, these are just preferences. They're both willing to (and do) act outside these preferences, especially if they think the other wants something else from them.

Also, because they're them (and kind of stupid) they don't really talk about any of this.

**Suzaku**:

Prefers it when Lelouch tops. Or, more accurately, when Lelouch sticks his penis in Suzaku's ass when they're having penetrative sex, no matter which of them is physically on top. This is simply because he's still a little anxious about the premature ejaculation thing from the first time he topped Lelouch. He's managed to hold off until Lelouch gets off since then, but there's always that worry in the back of his mind when he's inside Lelouch (which actually helps distract him and makes him last a bit longer :p).

Has had probably 3-4 times more orgasms than Lelouch (through masturbation, mostly), but hasn't ever had to hold back, which is why his control isn't as good. His refractory period, however, is also incredibly short, so he really just comes earlier and more often than Lelouch, naturally. XD

Likes getting blowjobs more than giving them, if only by a small margin. He thinks Lelouch is better at it than he is… and he's right. Lelouch did have the dream!Suzakus to practice with, though.

Is a total cuddler. So is Lelouch, so this isn't a problem, but Lelouch generally wants to start cuddling while Suzaku is still cooling off (Lelouch gets cold faster). They're still working on perfecting their post-coital cuddling timing.

Tops every single time they have shower sex. This is mainly because shower sex usually follows at least _some_ not-shower sex, and Lelouch's legs are already rubbery by the time they get in. Also, they both agree that Suzaku's strength and reflexes have a better chance of saving them if they slip than Lelouch's.

Loves watching Lelouch. Pretty much doing anything, but especially when they're having sex. He'll probably eventually want to tape them (home-made pr0n FTW!) or fuck in front of a mirror at some point. There's a small part of him that wants to watch someone else have sex with Lelouch (and a very short list of people Suzaku would trust in that role), but at this point any jealousy that thought provokes outweighs the potential arousal factor about a hundred-fold. Lelouch likely wouldn't agree anyways, and Suzaku would never bring it up, but it's an occasional fantasy.

Almost always initiates sex. It's not that Lelouch isn't interested, it's that by the time Lelouch's natural interest would be piqued, Suzaku already has them naked and possibly even post-coital. It's the difference of a handful of minutes, but it means Suzaku's almost always interested in sex before Lelouch is (but Lelouch's interest isn't hard for Suzaku to inflame).

Thinks he wants Lelouch more than Lelouch wants him (sexually), but is fully convinced and reassured that they both love each other equally. He's… not wrong, but that's mostly Lelouch's fault for being emotionally stunted since he ran away from home.

Has no words for what he is (bisexual) and thinks he's gay, despite having had a pretty uncontrolled crush on Euphy.

Wants kids, mostly for Lelouch's sake, but also to carry on his bloodline for his father and because he just… wants kids.

**Lelouch**:

Prefers having Suzaku in charge. He doesn't care which slot A goes into what slot B, or even really how they get off, but it drives him crazy when Suzaku takes control. Basically Lelouch wants to be the boss about 90% of the time, and the other 10% he wants to be having sex, with Suzaku in charge. (Actual percentages may vary.)

Has only ever gotten off via Suzaku (of one form or another) and has never even had a wet dream that didn't involve Suzaku. Doesn't masturbate (just doesn't need to or particularly want to) but if he did… he'd think of Suzaku. :p

Loves giving Suzaku blowjobs. He's surprised at how well what he's practiced in his dreams translates to the real world, and he finds blowjobs easy and tidy and Suzaku very clearly appreciates them.

Clings. He's used to loss – his mother, having to leave his family, even giving up Zero because of Schneizel. He knows just how transient things can be, and he's terrified of losing Suzaku. This manifests in a lot of ways, but mostly in clinging and cuddling in his sleep, when his conscious mind (and pride) can't stop him from acting on this impulse.

Could spend hours just making out without going any further than heavy petting. Sex is great, but it's great because it brings him closer to Suzaku. Just lounging around on the couch, stroking Suzaku's hair and neck and sides, slipping his hands under Suzaku's shirt as they kiss until their jaws are tired… that's just as satisfying to Lelouch.

…okay, yes, he has a slight (significant) bondage fetish. He will _never_ tell Suzaku this – it's just too humiliating! (Doesn't mean Suzaku won't figure it out on his own…) He would love to be tied up or even cuffed, but things like _shibari_ would be far too much for him – he would get stiff and uncomfortable, and he likes being able to move within the restraints. So far, Suzaku's hands are all that's held him down. So far. ;)

Is a not-so-secret romantic. He hasn't had much opportunity yet, but as their relationship progresses Lelouch is more likely than Suzaku to plan out detailed romantic nights or surprises. Suzaku will improvise them on occasion, but Lelouch enjoys planning them out (almost) as much as going through them with Suzaku.

Knows full well that if, somehow, this relationship ends he'll never find anyone else. He just won't bother. He does, however, hope that Suzaku will. And there's a part of him that hopes Suzaku chooses Euphy or Nunnally so he'll still be in Lelouch's life.

Had periods of jealousy over Gino dating Suzaku, but was always in complete denial about it. And then repressed it. It has, unfortunately, coloured his impression of Gino, to the point that he has to remind himself that he actually _likes_ Gino.

Wants kids, but doesn't want children of his own (kinda hates his own DNA). He'd love to raise Suzaku's children with him, though. Maybe Kaguya or Euphy or Nunnally would be willing to be a surrogate mother…


	18. Milly: Masks

The main reason Milly never told anyone about her crush on Lelouch was because it wasn't really a crush. Or, rather, it wasn't actually on Lelouch.

It was more the last vestiges of her romantic nature, the part of her that played princess and knew that she'd be rescued by a brave knight, the part of her that believed chivalry was a noble and flattering thing, and not the insulting patronization that it actually was in real life, from creepy men (and sometimes boys) who thought that if you did enough nice things to (not even _for_) a girl, you'd get sex.

Yeah. No.

Lelouch was, on paper, her ideal man. Handsome, smart, charming, and fully and comfortably aware that he was all three. Still, he was easy to talk to, easy to tease without any worry of hurting his feelings (his sense of humour was sharp, and mostly inwardly directed) and surprisingly warm. He was like the Swiss army knife of boys – whatever the job required, Lelouch could pull out an aspect of his personality and accomplish it.

As long as it didn't require strenuous physical exercise. And even then, he was good at getting others to do what he wanted.

Milly met him when she was sixteen and he was fifteen, and immediately wanted him. Less as a partner, and more as an accessory (he went well with _everything_). But the more she got to know Lelouch, the more she realized that there were two major problems with him.

The first was that he was the fakest phony to ever paste on a smile and charm anyone to do his bidding. Milly had even fallen for it more than a few times, until she learned to spot the warning signs (a sigh of exasperation, a finger kneading his forehead as Lelouch gave up on logic and reason and appealed to baser natures). He never seemed to have an off day, but she could sometimes catch hints that even his pleasant baseline was a front, hiding whatever he felt beneath a cool smile and a calm tone.

The second was that he was, frankly, clueless.

For someone who wielded his charms the way he did, the way he remained oblivious to the effects was almost impressive. He caught Shirley's eye and attention almost accidentally, and then proceeded to not follow through for over a year. If he'd been a girl, Milly would have called him a tease, but even that wasn't accurate, since he clearly had no idea what he was doing.

In fact, that was the way Lelouch was about almost all his relationships. Comfortable and appropriate, but never really seeming to invest or understand the layers that went into friendships and moreships.

Except with Suzaku. He was _perfect_ with Suzaku. Patient and affectionate and teasing and tactile and everything a good role model should be for a young boy. The times Milly got to spend with Lelouch while he was with Suzaku were the times she felt she was seeing the real Lelouch.

And she was very careful not to fall for that version of him. Because _he_ was just out of her league.

Under Lelouch's care, Suzaku flourished and grew into a confident, caring young man. Sometimes, Milly could see traces of Lelouch in him; in the way he tolerated prejudice with a bland mask, the way he went out of his way to care for others without expecting anything in return. But mostly Suzaku was completely different – more brash, more open; warmth to Lelouch's coolness. Mischievous and clever, without Lelouch's manipulative nature.

She could see how Lelouch was taken by him, and had to admit that they made a perfect pair. Although they looked nothing alike, their closeness and complementariness made them almost seem like brothers. The quickest and easiest way to get to Lelouch was through Suzaku, and Milly exploited that as often as she could.

After Lelouch left, she lost touch with Suzaku. She had a job and Suzaku was still just a kid and without the connection of Lelouch, there wasn't much of a point. When Lelouch came back (not for the aquarium visit, but as Lelouch vi Britannia) some of the mystery around him was explained. It didn't make him any less appealing and certainly he was no less charming, but there was a bitterness that had replaced the genuine warmth he'd occasionally shown.

Milly wasn't sure she liked this new Lelouch, this charming son of a charming man who was barely able to hide his fury and frustration under a bright, photogenic smile and a deep laugh. She missed the old Lelouch, who hid fatigue or apathy or occasionally annoyance. Or, when he was with Suzaku, who hid nothing and shone like the moon in the reflection of Suzaku's bright sun.

It turned out that passion, one of the things Lelouch had been lacking to be a perfect ideal, didn't suit him. It made him ugly under his beauty, cruel under his friendliness. It turned every word and gesture into a lie, and a hurtful lie as opposed to the kind lies of his past.

The interview went smoothly. Milly asked all the right questions and avoided anything that could endanger Suzaku and the other kids or Genbu or even Shirley. When it was over, Lelouch turned to her, with the same smile he used to wear at school, and thanked her.

She hugged him, impulsively and hugely unprofessionally, but an irresistible impulse. Lelouch, after a moment's hesitation, hugged back.

When he pulled away, she could see the wryness of his old humour, the affectionate twinkle in his eye like before. The rage was still there, hidden under layers of phony charm, but so was the old Lelouch.

Milly just hoped he finished whatever he was doing before he destroyed himself.


	19. BitterZaku: Snapshots 58: TowerLelouch

Suzaku hated dreaming.

There were a lot of things he disliked. Eating, looking into mirrors, thinking (_breathing, living, existing…_) but he disliked those things without passion, without fire.

He _hated_ dreaming.

Zero Requiem was supposed to fix everything. For Euphemia's memory, for Nunnally's world, for Suzaku's repentance.

For Lelouch's atonement.

Bullshit.

If Lelouch were here (_the thought was bitter, a __sharp pang of grief, soon subsumed by rage_) Suzaku could tell him that. Could tell him what a selfish ass he was, abandoning them like that; leaving Nunnally to take up a crown she despised and feared to stop the world from crumbling into anarchy, leaving Suzaku to pretend to be something he never was and never could be, leaving Schneizel without any will of his own, leaving Cornelia questioning everything she'd ever known, leaving Kallen without a driving force, leaving Milly and Rivalz without any answers, leaving Nina alone with her own guilt, leaving C.C.…

Well, to be honest, Suzaku didn't give a damn about C.C. She was just as guilty, as far as he was concerned, as Lelouch was of abandonment, just walking away like she'd had nothing to do with it. He didn't really care about her. But he didn't hate her. There wasn't enough room in Suzaku for that.

He saved all his hatred for Lelouch, and for the dreams.

The only time he slept was when even his _geass_ couldn't keep him running any longer. Sometimes, if he pushed himself far enough, he passed out, too tired to even dream normally, never mind crossing into the realm where the other Lelouchs waited for him. But even that wasn't guaranteed.

Sometimes he dreamed. And he hated that.

"Hello, Suzaku."

Ah. This Lelouch had more control than he did. They were in his dreamscape, a well-lit tower. The fact that Lelouch could clearly see him made this dream even worse than his others.

"Not going to greet me back? Ah, but there are so many more interesting things we could do together. You could bend me over and take me, hard and vicious, until you started crying. Or you could scream at me until you woke up. Crying, of course. Or…" Lelouch's smile was oddly twisted, a humourless thing. "You could kill me again. Wouldn't _that_ be cathartic?"

Suzaku's hand was around Lelouch's throat before he could even think. Lelouch laughed.

"Mustn't forget to cry, dear. That _is_ your thing."

Such an ass… So arrogant and controlling and manipulative…

Suzaku hated him. Suzaku wanted him. Suzaku…

was kissing him. Hard, demanding kisses that were returned with teeth and nails against the back of his neck. The more fierce and forceful Suzaku pressed against and into Lelouch, the more Lelouch fought back. It was exhilarating, the way none of the tender lovemaking Suzaku had shared with Lelouch when he'd been alive had been.

That had been about love. There was nothing like that here, just sex and need and anger.

There wasn't even any room for hate.

After they were done, and Suzaku came to his senses, he could smell the sharp tang of blood and remember the cries of pain, but looking at the way Lelouch was sprawled on the bed, unwounded and smiling at him, he wasn't even sure those memories and senses were accurate.

This was, after all, merely a dream.

"Feel better?"

Suzaku shook his head. "A little. I hate you."

"Mmm…" Lelouch sat up and wound himself around Suzaku, one leg draped over Suzaku's lap and both arms hanging loosely over Suzaku's shoulders. "Why?"

"You left me."

Lelouch laughed, low and rich. "Don't worry too much about it. Turns out that if I'd managed to find a way to come back from the dead you'd still hate me."

"No." Suzaku shook his head, in strong denial. "No, I need you. I need you back, I need…"

"Hush." Lelouch kissed him and Suzaku melted into it. "You're confusing 'want' with 'need'. You don't need me, Zero doesn't need me, Britannia doesn't need me. No one needs me, Suzaku."

"I do," Suzaku said, holding Lelouch's head in place as he kissed him over and over again. "I do, I do, I do I do Ido Idoido…" This was the worst part of the dreams, the part Suzaku _hated_. Because, for a moment, he had Lelouch. He touched him and he kissed him and he pressed him against rumpled sheets and Lelouch held him and kissed him in return.

Until he woke up.

And he was going to wake up. Inevitably. It was worse than living without this cruel tease, but he could never resist taking advantage of this, letting Lelouch in and letting Lelouch break him. Again. Over and over.

Lelouch sighed into Suzaku's kiss. "I wish I could love you as you love me." He wrapped his legs around Suzaku's hips, drawing him in closer. "But that's not my place. My place is here."

No. Suzaku didn't want to say goodbye yet. He didn't want this to be taken away from him again. "Let me be with you. Just for now…"

"That's not what you want. You want forever." Lelouch smiled and drew Suzaku down. "I can't give you that. But I can promise you this…"

His lips were warm and wet against Suzaku's ear. "There is someone out there who can. Just hold out for them."

There were tears on Suzaku's face when he opened his eyes.

He _hated_ dreaming.


	20. Lelouch: Eterntally at the SAZ

"…Lelouch?"

"_Don't talk to me_."

Suzaku actually fell back a step at the vehement rejection. He had no idea where he was, although it looked like a mess. It could have been an arena at one point, used for sports or concerts or something, but the blown up walls and stands, the bullet holes _everywhere_, the fires and the stench of blood and the freshly dead bodies kind of made it unrecognizable.

And, in the middle of it all, was Lelouch. In a black and purple outfit with a cape and ridiculous high heels, looking so abjectly miserable that Suzaku barely even noticed the dead bodies.

Until he saw Euphemia's.

He'd thought, up until now, that this was all Lelouch's creation. But Lelouch hadn't even met Euphemia, had he? Suzaku hadn't even met her yet, although he'd corresponded with her by letter and seen enough pictures to know that that was her. She was coming to visit in the spring. But that was all about Suzaku, wasn't it? It had nothing to do with Lelouch.

And yet, here she was, dead.

Suzaku looked away, uncomfortable at the thought that this was his addition to the desolate landscape of this dream. And it _was_ clearly a dream, probably one of the shared ones. Which meant this was one of the other Lelouchs and he looked…

Miserable.

Suzaku came up behind him and wrapped his arms around his waist. Lelouch stiffened in his hold, almost pulling away, but Suzaku wouldn't let him.

"Did this actually happen?"

"Two… almost three years ago," Lelouch said dully. "I lost everything here." He laughed dryly. "And succeeded in every objectively measurable way." He turned in Suzaku's arms. "You were here. You saw everything, and you _knew_…" He fell to his knees, pressing his head against Suzaku's chest. "You found a way to defy me, after everything I did, after I _ordered_ you not to die, you found a way into the World of C and you forced my hand and I…"

Suzaku held him helplessly as Lelouch shook. "Wasn't me."

"I know, but it could have been. When you… when _he_ saw Euphy's body, he was just so…" Lelouch shuddered. "I never meant for any of it to happen. Euphy's death, Suzaku's sacrifice, not even what happened in the World of C. You took me and exposed me and _used_ me to get revenge on my father and then you let the World of C take you away from me. And Nunnally won't speak to me, and C.C.'s gone, but Japan's free and Britannia is a kinder place, and… I guess I won. But…"

Suzaku moved forward until he was straddling Lelouch's lap, cuddling him with his whole body. "I… I don't understand any of that. But I'm sorry. I'm sorry you're so hurt and alone, and I'm sorry I can't fix it."

Lelouch brought a hand up to the back of Suzaku's head. "You're just a child. Younger than Suzaku was when he joined the army, probably. But you're still…" His arms tightened. "I'm sorry you had to see this. But I can't leave. This is… this is where I belong. This is where I lose Euphy and Suzaku and Nunnally and C.C. and the Black Knights and everything. And where I won."

"Won what?"

Lelouch laughed. "A war only I was fighting. A war I could never have won on my own. A war I paid for with Euphy's life, and Suzaku gave his own life to end."

Suzaku nodded. "It must have been important to him."

"He was on the wrong side. He should have–" Lelouch cut himself off. "But it doesn't matter. In the end, he gave up his life so that I could imprison my father in the World of C. Selfless little prat, leaving me to deal with the consequences…"

"…sorry."

"Don't be. Apparently I do the same in a lot of other worlds."

"Oh."

This time, Lelouch's laugh didn't seem so bitter. "You're… very young. I wish I'd known Suzaku at your age."

"I'm thirteen."

"Okay, fine. You're not that young. Still…"

"Why didn't you?"

Lelouch sighed. "We were… separated when we were ten. He… it was a bad situation overall. By the time we met again, we were seventeen and it was already…" He shook his head. "You don't need to know about any of that."

"Kay." While Suzaku might normally push to know more, the stench of burning bodies make him trust that whatever Lelouch was keeping from him was probably horrible enough that he didn't want to know. Like maybe this Lelouch or his Suzaku had done something awful, or something horrible had happened to his father. Or some combination of those…

No, that was too awful to even contemplate.

Lelouch's hand smoothed over Suzaku's hair before he pushed him away. "Thank you. I'm glad I got to meet you, even if it was… here."

"It's…" _not so bad_, Suzaku couldn't say without lying. "I don't know what happened, but I don't think you deserve to be stuck here. An' I think that if your Suzaku was around, he'd agree with me."

Lelouch shrugged. "Possibly. I don't know if we were still friends at the end, but he did support me when I needed it the most." He smiled. "Just keep that in mind, Suzaku. Your Lelouch needs you, more than he'll ever admit to himself."

"I know," Suzaku said, a little smugly. "He'll figure it out, though… eventually."


	21. Cornelia: Shades

Cornelia's first memory was of Schneizel, a boy of eight years at the time, explaining to her after she'd gotten into trouble for something (her "terrible twos" had stretched into her third year) that things weren't black and white or as simple as they seemed. Heavy stuff for a toddler, but Schneizel never talked down to anyone just because they were younger.

Form that moment on, she'd known that her brother was wise and clever, but that they'd never really understand each other.

Cornelia was a concrete thinker, someone who dealt with finding the solution to the problem in front of them, rather than the underlying issues. But she dealt with that problem with ruthless efficiency and a brilliance all her own. Schneizel, a far deeper, long-term thinker, often complimented her on her efficiency. They made a great team.

Then Schneizel went away to university and Cornelia joined the army. And then Marianne died. And then, Lelouch left.

And suddenly, Cornelia had a problem that required more thought than action – Nunnally.

Nunnally had been nine, Cornelia had just turned twenty-one and made Captain, and every instinct in Cornelia's rather formidable body had screamed at her to protect her little sister. Of all her siblings, Nunnally was most like Euphemia in temperament, and the closest to her in age. In fact, it had been Euphemia, not Lelouch, who'd told Cornelia that Lelouch had left Nunnally in her care.

Abandoned, more like.

There was nothing Cornelia could do. Nunnally hadn't wanted her, she'd wanted Lelouch. Euphemia had been a huge help, the only sibling Nunnally related to easily after her brother left, but Cornelia hadn't been able to do anything for her, other than fight her father behind the scenes when he wanted to send Nunnally away to a boarding school or send her out on more politically flavoured tasks when she was a little older.

Even for that, she'd occasionally needed Schneizel's support to win against their father and protect their sister.

Anger wasn't helpful. The last thing Nunnally had needed would have been Cornelia ranting about how her youngest brother was irresponsible and cowardly, leaving her behind and running off on his own. But that was, as far as Cornelia was concerned, the only truth.

Things may not have been black and white, or as simple as they seemed, but Cornelia had never quite mastered that way of thinking. And, according to her, Lelouch's actions were simply wrong.

As an active member of an active military, Cornelia spent as much time oversees as at home. She missed most birthdays and holidays, but never really minded since Euphemia and Nunnally had each other during those times. For that alone, extending her protection to Nunnally had been worth it.

Both girls attended the ceremonies when Cornelia had been promoted to Major, the first time they'd met Guilford. Nunnally had liked him instantly. Euphemia had taken more time, vetting him before accepting him. Cornelia hadn't even told her that she and Guilford were lovers, she just… _knew_ somehow.

Of course, Cornelia wasn't adept at hiding things. Again, not a skill she'd ever managed to acquire.

The year before Lelouch returned, Cornelia was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the field, and accepted Guildford's marriage proposal (with the understanding that they wouldn't get married for a while, until both their careers were more stable). By the time Cornelia had been told Lelouch was back, he'd already debuted on TV as Zero, looking cool and smug and more like a darker, less principled version of Schneizel than anything else.

She wasn't sure what she'd expected from him. Humility, perhaps. The realization that he'd made the wrong choice, all those years ago. Perhaps even some desperation, or regret.

There was none. Not publicly, and not privately when Cornelia confronted him outside their childhood home. Rather, there was arrogance, coolness, and the self-assured smugness of someone who believed that anyone who judged them just didn't understand their circumstances. As if any circumstances could justify what Lelouch had done.

But he wasn't just a smug, arrogant brat (although that was the face he presented to Cornelia every time he saw her). He'd changed from the child who had gone with the flow of things and obediently followed whatever orders he was given, wrapping himself in security rather than taking any risks. He was far more brash, far more critical, and had a drive all his own. He was just as protective as he'd ever been, only now he was protective of that young Japanese boy of his as well as Nunnally. In fact, from what Cornelia had seen, he was protective of the boy _over_ Nunnally.

For years, Euphemia had tried to convince Cornelia that Lelouch had left in order to protect Nunnally, that he felt she'd be safer with him out of the picture. The first time Cornelia believed that was a possibility was when Lelouch bared his fangs at her, over an implied insult directed at Suzaku. He really was Schneizel's brother – the least amount of force, applied at just the right place for the maximal effect.

And he was still a Britannia only, like Cornelia, he'd left the family fold and seen the outside world.

She looked forward to the day that they could talk without bristling at each other. Because, for all that Lelouch was Schneizel's brother, he was also hers – protective, decisive, and fierce when those he cared about were threatened. One day, when she could move past what he'd done, when he'd moved past his reflexive defensiveness, they could connect again, as siblings.

Because they had more in common than she'd thought.

And things weren't always black and white. And almost never as simple as they seemed.


	22. Suzallen: Snapshots 75

The familiar and well-loved scents of lavender and vanilla faded into the equally familiar and just as well-loved scents of roses and leather. Suzaku nuzzled against the warm body next to him, feeling contented and comfortable.

"Mmm… how were your dreams?"

Suzaku grinned, pressing kisses against soft skin. "Satisfying. You know… for dreams."

"I do know. You moaned his name again."

"Did I?" Suzaku grinned. "He sucked me off."

"Well then, I guess there's nothing left for me to – _Suzaku_!"

Suzaku pinned his bedmate down, letting surprise and his greater weight do most of the work. "Don't pretend knowing I woke up from a dream with _him_ doesn't turn you on."

"I have no idea what… _ooh_… you had better follow through on that, bastard."

"Have I ever left you wanting?"

Strong legs wrapped around his waist. "Just make sure this isn't a first."

The morning sex was great as usual, and Suzaku was really looking forward to the rest of the day as he lay back, basking in the afterglow.

"Hey… Kallen?"

"Hmm?"

"D'you ever find it… _weird_?"

Kallen looked over at him, her blue eyes dancing with amusement. "I find a lot of things about you weird, Suzaku. You're going to have to narrow it down for me."

"This whole… thing. With us. I mean, what with Lelouch…"

"I told you I was fine with that."

"…and C.C."

"And_ you_ said you were fine with _that_."

"I am. Even though you're always in a foul mood when you come back from being with her for more than a few days."

Kallen snorted. "Great sex only gets you so far. She's always so _smug_ and self-contained…" Kallen shot Suzaku a wry look. "Good thing you only visit Lelouch while you're asleep. I can't imagine what you'd be like after spending more than a few hours with him."

"They're not really _him_. They're… they vary. Some of them are as sweet as Euphy, some of them are colder than Schneizel. And some of them are batshit insane. There was one–"

"Stop! I am okay with you sleep-fucking him, but there is no way I want to hear about it. As far as I'm concerned, Lelouch is dead, and that's it. I…" She sighed. "I don't want his memory tarnished."

Suzaku felt a slow grin creep over his face. Kallen was usually quite composed, much better at compartmentalizing and dealing with her emotions than Suzaku was. But every now and again, she'd say something that she thought was sappy and ridiculous, just because it was true and it made Suzaku smile. "That's so sweet."

"Suck on it, Kururugi."

"Already did before I woke up, Kouzuki."

Kallen blushed. That was another thing she did that Suzaku was fond of. It was harder to get her to blush than it used to be, when all it took was a dropped hint that she led a double life to get her all flustered. Then Lelouch had told her that Suzaku knew about her and the Black Knights, and she'd been furious at them both for weeks. It wasn't easy getting her to react like that anymore, even with something as mild as a blush. Suzaku could no longer pull it off at all, no matter what, when he was Zero.

Speaking of… "Kaguya's specifically requested you as an escort for the next U.F.N. meeting."

Kallen rolled her eyes. "Doesn't she ever get tired of matchmaking?"

"I think she'd like us to get married. Or something."

"I promised C.C. that week."

"I figured."

"…maybe she could come along too? Make it a threesome?"

Suzaku laughed. "You will _never_ talk me into that, Kallen. She scares the shit out of me."

"I know."

"You are evil." He pulled Kallen in closer, kissing her until she kissed him back. He ran his hands over her breasts, pressing just hard enough to make her gasp, then let them rest over her stomach. "…would it be so bad?"

"Hmm?"

"Getting married."

Kallen's smile turned warm and affectionate and a little pitying. Lelouch had occasionally smiled at Suzaku like that. It wasn't any easier to take from her. "Suzaku, that's not… we're not like that."

…_true enough._

"Anyways, Zero can't get married. No matter what Kaguya says."

"I won't be Zero forever."

"And I hope that once you're able to be Suzaku again, that you find someone you can love and who makes your life joyful. But that's not going to be me, Suzaku. We're not in love. We're just friends who have a ridiculous amount of incredibly satisfying and disturbingly flexible sex."

Suzaku sighed. Maybe it was how he'd been raised, but there was a part of him that felt he was taking advantage of Kallen, that he should make an 'honest woman' of her. But that wasn't what she wanted. He suspected she'd been in love with Lelouch (or Zero), to the point that she wasn't willing to let herself take that sort of risk again. She'd never said, and Lelouch likely had never noticed (wrapped up in his revolution and Suzaku) but even before they'd started having 'ridiculous amount of incredibly satisfying and disturbingly flexible sex', Suzaku had known there was something Kallen was grieving that wasn't just Lelouch's death.

He wished he could fix that, but… that desire wasn't love either. And Kallen wasn't the type to appreciate pity, on any level.

They'd never even said "I love you". They were, if nothing else, honest.

But at least Suzaku could offer her this: "You make me happy."

Kallen smiled. "You make me happy too, Suzaku." She kissed him and slipped out of his arms, ready to start the day. "I'm… glad to know you."

Even if that was as close as they came to "I love you", it was enough.


	23. Lelouch: le Liar

This dream was nice. There was a river on a mountainside and it was cool, but the kind of cool that was an early morning prelude to a warm day. It smelled lovely full of life and greenery and kinda foreign, but Suzaku blamed that on being brought up in the city.

He didn't even clue in that it was one of _those_ dreams until Lelouch, wearing Britannian clothing at least, walked out from behind a tree a ways up the mountain.

Suzaku grinned and waved. "Lelouch!"

"Suzaku." Lelouch walked carefully down the slight slope, gingerly placing his feet (all wrong and, careful as he was, he'd eventually slip couldn't he read the ground?) as he approached with a warm smile. "It's good to see you."

"You too. Where are we?"

"About an hour's walk from the Kururugi shrine." Lelouch frowned at Suzaku. "…what do you think of it?"

"It's pretty," Suzaku answered. Lelouch sighed.

"You've never been here, have you. That's… new."

Suzaku shrugged. "I probably have, when I was a baby, before we left Japan."

The smile returned to Lelouch's face. "You call it 'Japan' without any hesitation." He looked pleased. "Come on. There's a lovely spot down the mountain a bit a picnic rock by the river."

Suzaku obediently followed him. "D'you live here?"

"No. I live in a palace in Britannia. But this is where all my best memories are."

Well, that was better than constantly returning to the time and place that held your worst memories, Suzaku supposed. "Like what?"

"Like… fishing for crayfish with a frog's leg." Suzaku giggled. That was the last thing he'd expected Lelouch to say. Lelouch continued, in a lightly amused voice. "Or making mud pies, which is still the most _ridiculous_ idea I've ever heard. Or hiding from a sudden storm in the hollow of a tree, getting into huge screaming matches that ended up with ungainly wrestling matches." The rock he'd mentioned came into view. "We fought over the silliest things."

"That sounds nice."

"It does, doesn't it?" Lelouch hoisted himself up on the rock with the ease of practice. "And what about you?"

Suzaku clambered up beside him. "No palaces or crayfish for me. I'm just an ordinary kid. I go to school, hang out with my friends, stuff like that."

Lelouch hugged him suddenly, a tight embrace that was almost out of nowhere. "…Lelouch?"

"I'm sorry, it's just… that's the happiest thing I ever heard."

Suzaku laughed. "It's pretty boring, actually. Especially 'cause you're not there."

Lelouch's face turned grave as he nodded. "What happened?"

"Law school," Suzaku said, simply.

"Law…" The smile returned to Lelouch's face. "It must be a good school to drag him away from you."

Suzaku nodded. "Yeah, maybe… Doesn't mean I don't wish he wasn't around."

"Of course not. What's he like?"

"He's really cool!" Suzaku said, making Lelouch laugh. "Okay, maybe not _cool_, exactly, but he's… always what he needs to be. Which is pretty impressive."

"What do you like about him?"

"Fishing for compliments?" Suzaku teased. "Um… I like that he listens to me, even though he's older. I like his sense of humour, and the fact that he likes mine. I like the way his eyelashes flutter when he's asleep, and how gentle he can be. I like that he cares about me, and puts me first." Suzaku grinned. "Also, he's really good at making people believe what he wants them to believe. That's impressive."

Lelouch laughed. "It's easier than you think. How are you at lying?"

"…pretty good."

"No, you're not," Lelouch said, grinning. "You're actually pretty lousy at it."

Suzaku elbowed him. "I am not! Fine, then. How do I get better?"

"Hmm… well, first of all, the techniques that worked for me won't work for you. Your brain's different."

"…did you just call me stupid?"

Lelouch snorted. "No. Well, not exactly." Suzaku elbowed him again. "Ow. Alright, Kururugi Suzaku, Lying 101. The first thing you need to do is convince yourself not that something _is_ true, but that it _could be_ true. I've seen you… well, I've seen Suzaku lie through his teeth because there was an outlying chance that maybe he was telling some oblique version of the truth."

"I don't get it."

Lelouch sighed. "Well… let's say you wanted to claim that you'd gone fishing in this river. You've never been here, so that's impossible. But if you think about it, _another_ Suzaku has been here, and he probably fished this river at one point. And he's basically you."

"That's kinda bullshit."

"No. It's _completely_ bullshit. But you can buy into it, Suzaku. I believe in you."

Suzaku frowned. Just because there was obviously a connection between himself and this world's Suzaku didn't mean that they shared experiences. …did it? After all, there had to be something other than genetics and names shared between them. Their different backgrounds and experiences were what set them apart, wasn't it? Or was that just what it appeared to be on the surface, and with the worlds connecting, there was more shared than dreams.

"I guess, technically, if you think of every Suzaku being connected…"

"Well done. Drink that Kool-Aid!"

"…what?"

"Cultural reference. I guess you didn't have that in your world." Lelouch ruffled Suzaku's hair. "The point is that that's how _you_ lie." He frowned. "Which isn't exactly the ideal thing to teach a thirteen-year-old, is it?"

It was Suzaku's turn to grin. "Too late now!"


	24. Schneizel: Familial Duty

Family.

It was the most important thing in the world. Or so Schneizel's mother told him when she left him with his father and siblings and Clovis, his only full brother who had just turned two and had no understanding of the situation.

Schneizel, on the other hand, was a much older nine-year-old. He knew full well that it hadn't been her decision to leave, that his father was replacing her with a younger woman. He didn't mind it, since his mother would be well taken care of and he'd be able to see her on a regular basis, after all. It seemed like overall a good plan, giving everyone what they wanted.

He didn't hate the new woman his father had chosen either. She was bright and lively and determined to have her place in the family recognized and accepted. Quite the opposite from Schneizel's mother who had stayed quietly out of sight of Charles's wives and true-born children, and kept her own children there too. With Marianne willing to back him up, Schneizel didn't have to steal away to talk with Odysseus, who was three years his senior but already clearly not as bright, or play with Guinevere who was a spoilt little brat, but had a good imagination.

Most importantly, though, he didn't have to sneak around to see Cornelia, who at three was more interesting than their elder two siblings combined. She had a different mother, which might have helped explain it, only Schneizel found her determination and stubbornness to be uniquely hers. He adored her.

He loved Clovis too, and was glad for his brother that he would never have to hide like Schneizel had. Schneizel had trained himself to fade into the background, be neither seen nor heard. Clovis would never have to learn that skill. Nor would Marianne's own children. She would see to that.

A year after Marianne moved in she became pregnant and, a few months later, she began to show. Although Schneizel was careful not to show it (she wasn't his mother, the child would be only half related to him, and it wasn't his place) he looked forward to a new sibling, hoping that he or she would mirror Marianne's exuberance.

Not so much.

Lelouch was a whiny, squirmy, tiny little thing, even for a baby. His cry was always pitiful rather than demanding, he walked later than he should have, talked later that he should have (making up for it with a huge vocabulary and short sentences within weeks of his first word) and fussed endlessly whenever anyone but Marianne handled him. When he was born, Cornelia was just starting to grow into the magnificent woman she'd become (she was six, but the signs were all there) and Clovis was just starting to be a "real" child with his own personality (cheerful and easygoing, but selfish and occasionally demanding) and Schneizel had far more interesting things to focus on than a baby despite his newness.

Then, a few years later, Euphemia was born and all of Cornelia's attention became wrapped up in her baby sister. Schneizel couldn't begrudge her that, considering how much joy he got out of being the "elder sibling", but he found himself at loose ends. Clovis had just fallen in love with painting (he was seven, everyone assumed he'd outgrow it) and Schneizel had to choose between spending time with his older siblings or on his own.

He ended up doing a lot of reading and chess solitaire.

It was during one of those games that Lelouch, who had just turned three, toddled up to the board. Schneizel watched him warily, waiting to see what would happen. He wasn't overly invested in this game, and was frankly curious to see what Lelouch would do.

Lelouch just stood there, staring at the board, his finger in his mouth.

Schneizel moved a white knight. Lelouch's eyes followed. Then the black king. Again, Lelouch watched silently. Schneizel moved the pieces randomly, drawing out the game for Lelouch's viewing pleasure. After about five minutes, Lelouch reached out (with his drooly hand) and grabbed a black bishop.

And moved it three squares, on the diagonal.

Schneizel countered with a rook. Lelouch frowned and moved his own rook, properly, but not tactically well. Schneizel, endlessly amused, moved a knight.

Lelouch picked up his knight and hesitated. Schneizel hid a smile of all the pieces, the knights were the least intuitive.

"In the shape of an 'L', like in 'Lelouch'," he explained. "Two squares and then one." He sketched out the pattern on the chessboard. "It's limited, but it's also the only piece that can jump over the others."

"'Cause it's a horse."

…reasonable logic. "It's called a 'knight'."

Lelouch grunted, but didn't repeat the name. He still didn't like speaking, embarrassed by every error he made. Instead, he pointed to the queen.

"That's the queen," Schneizel explained. "Would you to learn to play?"

The fingers, complete with the knight, went back into Lelouch's mouth as he thought it over. Then he nodded.

"Alright. Here's how you set up the board… I'm going to need that piece back please, Lelouch."

He wasn't a replacement for Cornelia. He was far too much like Schneizel; an observer (by choice rather than by necessity, but still) and a plotter. They reflected rather than complimented each other. But he was entertaining and sweet and sensitive, and his reactions (and especially his overreactions) were hilarious. For the next two years, Schneizel had a little dark shadow, and he couldn't have been happier about it.

And then Nunnally came along.

Again, Schneizel could hardly resent Lelouch for falling in love with his little sister. After all, Schneizel had done the same with three of his younger siblings and had no regrets.

Because friends were nice and followers, he was beginning to learn, were even nicer, but family was the most important thing.


	25. Mirrorverse: Snapshots 88

"Hey."

"Hey." Lelouch put his schoolbag down and closed the front door behind himself. "Is Euphy here?"

"Nah, I just… dropped by. Clovis let me in."

Lelouch made a face. "You could have called."

"Why?" Suzaku asked. "You don't like me just dropping by?"

"No! No, that's…" Lelouch flushed, biting his lower lip in a move that was too adorable to be hot and too hot to be adorable. Damn fourteen-year-olds, they seemed to age years in the span of a few months. "It's fine. Would you like something to eat, drink?"

_Coffee, tea, me_? Suzaku firmly told his brain to shut up. "Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go out. There's a new crêperie that just opened in the strip mall. My treat."

Lelouch smiled. "That sounds great. Just give me a moment to get changed?" He turned to go to his room, and Suzaku grabbed his arm, not sure why. Lelouch looked up at him with wide eyes and parted lips, the slight flush on his face deepening.

_I could kiss him right now_, Suzaku thought, the idea so strong he was afraid Lelouch would overhear it. _It would be his first kiss, I'm pretty sure, and I could just… right here and now and…_

He released Lelouch's arm and shifted awkwardly. "Um. Don't change too much. I like you just the way you are." _Smooth_.

Lelouch's confused look vanished under a pleased smile. "That's so corny."

"I mean it!" Suzaku protested, with a grin, thinking of all the other Lelouchs he'd dreamed of. "You're my very favourite Lelouch."

The blush was back. "I… I won't be long."

After Lelouch dashed off to his room, Suzaku leaned against the wall, closing his eyes and trying _desperately_ hard not to mentally picture Lelouch stripping out of his clothes, his fingers catching on his buttons in his haste, peeling off layers of school uniform to reveal perfect pale skin with a trail of fine black hair leading to the front of his pants which would open so easily under Suzaku's hands, the slow sound of the zipper a background to Lelouch's quickening breaths…

"So, where're you going?"

Suzaku snapped out of his fantasy so fast it almost hurt. "Clovis! I didn't hear you… uh, the new crêperie." Great, he was hard. Stupid brain. "It just opened, and I thought…"

Clovis smiled. "That sounds like fun. You two should totally have fun." He clasped his hand on Suzaku's shoulder, squeezing hard enough to imply a threat. "Just not _too_ much fun, if you know what I mean."

"I… I don't…"

"He's still a kid. He's got a massive crush, but he's just a kid. I get that you like him and I'm actually on your side in this, but if you forget that he's a kid, if you move too fast…" The hand on Suzaku's shoulder tightened to almost actual pain. "Well, Schneizel's not the only one looking out for him. And I'm a lot less subtle."

Suzaku frowned. He'd thought that Schneizel had liked him… "I would never hurt Lelouch."

"Great!" Clovis's somewhat threatening smile turned into a full blown, charming beam. "We'll hold you to that."

"Hold him to what?" Lelouch asked, returning to the room. Suzaku plastered a smile on his face and opened his mouth to try to play it off as nothing, but the words got stuck in his throat at the sight of Lelouch in black jeans and a sleeveless black turtleneck as he shrugged on a dark red leather jacket. The clothes weren't especially tight or revealing, although the contrast between the dark colours and his pale skin was remarkable, but they were certainly…

"Ah, they fit!" Clovis clapped his hands. "Brilliant! And Cornelia says I can't judge sizes just by visual memory alone. _I_ am an _artist_."

Lelouch rolled his eyes. "Yes, they fit fine." He turned to Suzaku, and a flicker of uncertainty crossed his face. "Is this okay? I mean, I know it's not my usual style, but it's comfortable… I can go change again…"

"No!" Funny how _that_ was able to get out around the lump in Suzaku's throat. "I mean, nah. That's fine. We're not going anywhere fancy, after all." _And maybe it would be warm enough that Suzaku could convince him to take off that jacket… or to let Suzaku take that jacket off him…_

The uncertainty fled under a relived smile, and Suzaku was so taken with that expression that he didn't even notice Clovis sidling up to him.

"Just so we're clear. Touch him and I'll have your balls cut off." He sounded completely serious for once.

Lelouch huffed and shoved himself between them. "Quit teasing him, Clovis."

"Right, right," Clovis said, backing up cheerfully with his hands up in a gesture of amicable surrender. "Just a joke. Have fun you two!"

"Oh, for goodness sakes…" Lelouch said, exasperated, turning to face Suzaku. "He can be the most–"

They were close. _Really_ close. Noses-almost-brushing close. Lelouch gave a soft gasp, and Suzaku felt a tug somewhere lower than his stomach at the thought that Lelouch was breathing in his air. He'd move away. Or Lelouch would. Any moment now…

"_Suzaku_…"

Oh, come _on_, that was totally unfair. Alright, maybe his hand on Lelouch's hip was equally unfair, but that was just because he was afraid Lelouch would fall or… something. And the slow circles he was tracing with his thumb against the skin just below Lelouch's shirt and above his pants were totally to help them keep their balance. And even if they weren't, it wasn't as if Suzaku was made out of stone…

Lelouch looked away, his body still close enough that Suzaku could feel the heat radiating from it, but at least his lips weren't a mere breath away from Suzaku's. "So. Um… crepes?"

"Right." Suzaku gave that soft skin a final caress and then dropped his hand, stepping back. "Crepes."

When Lelouch bent down to pick up his shoes, Suzaku nearly screamed in frustration. One thing was for sure; someone, somewhere had a _really_ sick sense of humour.


	26. Lelouch: Now and Forever

"Hello, Suzaku."

Suzaku sat up in his own bed, frowning. "Lelouch? What're you doin' here?"

"You're asleep, dear." Lelouch moved closer as Suzaku rubbed the sleep from his eyes, waiting for his vision to adjust to the light. "Sorry, you got me this time." Suzaku scooted over with a frown as Lelouch sat on the bed next to him. "How are things?"

"…good. You're not really…"

"No. I'm physically eighteen, but technically twenty-one. I understand from the other Suzakus I've met that there actually _is_ a difference."

Suzaku frowned. "How does that…"

"What do you know of _geass_?" Lelouch asked casually.

Suzaku shrugged. "Not much. I've heard it, from C.C. and some of you guys. But not from my own Lelouch."

"Interesting. Have you heard about the _code_?" Suzaku shook his head. "Well, they're related. Basically, you can lose the power of _geass_ only by taking on a _code_. The moment you do, you stop aging and become essentially immortal, if not exactly invulnerable."

_That_ sounded interesting. "So if you were shot, what would happen?"

"It depends where. In the arm or leg it would hurt, then my body would reject the bullet and it would heal, very quickly. In the heart or the head or any other kill shot, I would appear to die until my body repaired itself enough that I could revive. Other than that, I can't starve, I'm immune to poisons, I _can_ drown, repeatedly, until I wash up on shore." Lelouch gave a small shudder. "Not something I'd recommend."

"Cooool…" Suzaku grinned. "How many times have you died?"

"Enough," Lelouch said calmly. "More than enough, actually." He smiled. "I must admit that you're the first Suzaku who's been impressed rather than angry."

"Over what?" Suzaku scoffed. "You finding a way to keep yourself safe, no matter what? I think that's the greatest thing ever! I bet your Suzaku doesn't worry about you _nearly_ as much as the other Suzakus who still have Lelouchs do."

Lelouch laughed. "He has other things to worry about, though. I don't think there's anything that would stop Suzaku from worrying about me, and likewise I will spend eternity worrying about him."

Suzaku sat up straighter, his eyes widening. "He's got one too?"

"Clever," Lelouch said, approvingly. "Yes, he does. Although he got his a few years after mine."

"So he's older?" Suzaku grinned. "How's that going?"

"_Fine_," Lelouch said in that way that meant it was _not_ fine, but he was way too mature to complain, and it wasn't like he could change things in any case. "It's just a few years and we're both actually the same age anyway." He sounded like he'd had to make this argument many times before, to the amused faces of those who called themselves his friends and therefore didn't hold back on teasing him.

Suzaku's grin widened. "But he looks older," he persisted. "Like, when people see you two together, they assume you're the younger one. And I bet you look littler too, since you're just as skinny as any other Lelouch–"

"_Slim_," Lelouch corrected primly. "And what do I care what people think?"

There was a long moment of silence.

"…alright, I deeply care about what people think, but looking younger than Suzaku isn't one of the things I'd be offended by. Our apparent respective ages don't matter nearly as much as anyone would think."

Suzaku laughed outright. "Immortality, invincibility, and eternal youth, and you're just the same as any other Lelouch."

"Not any of them. I hear some are quite insane."

Suzaku couldn't argue that point.

"Are you happy?"

Lelouch looked taken aback. "Am I… Oh, Suzaku, yes." He reached out and embraced Suzaku. "That you would think do ask that so readily is…"

Suzaku flushed against Lelouch's shoulder. "It's just polite."

"No. Not between us. I'm sure you've met several Lelouchs, and that you still ask that question, knowing that the answer isn't always the one you'd like to hear, is brave. Even though you can't change it, you still want to know, you still care."

"Of course I…" Suzaku nestled against Lelouch. "I love you."

"Sweet boy."

Suzaku hummed contentedly, basking in Lelouch's presence and praise. "Thanks. Are there others like you out there? Like with those _code_ things?"

Lelouch nodded, pulling gently away. "I've been told that there are, and I've met other Suzakus with _codes_. Why?"

Suzaku grinned. "'Cause if I could catch one fast enough, _before_ he decides I'm like his Suzaku's little brother rather than Suzaku–" Lelouch coughed to hide a laugh and Suzaku rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I noticed that."

"To be fair, you look even younger asleep."

"Not my fault."

Lelouch shook his head, amused. "Go on, if you catch one before that…"

"Ah, right." Suzaku's grin returned, even bigger and brighter than before. "Well, if I can manage to seem _older_ when I'm awake, maybe I can get somewhere. After all, there isn't that much difference between eighteen and–"

"Fourteen?" Lelouch interjected smoothly. "I think you'll find that there is, actually."

"Not _that_ much."

Lelouch's smile gentled. "Oh, Suzaku…" He pressed a kiss to Suzaku's forehead. "It's not just your age. You've been protected, cherished, and there's a naïveté that comes with that which makes it even harder to see you as adult-like. But even if you'd joined the army and fought and killed as my Suzaku had at your age, you would still be a child. And I don't think you'll ever find a Lelouch who sees you as anything else."

"What if he was fourteen too?"

Lelouch shrugged. "Then you'd both be children, and you would connect as children, and as peers." He hesitated and shrugged. "Maybe. I must admit that the first time Suzaku and I met, we were of an age, but neither of us considered the other his equal."

Suzaku felt a pang of envy. How nice it might have been if Lelouch had been with him and Tamaki and Rivalz in school, this upper-class snobby nerd who was too prissy and too good for everyone else. Suzaku could've taken him down a peg or three and, once Lelouch recovered from that, his tongue could have done the same to Suzaku and they'd be best friends.

Maybe even more.

"You're smiling. What are you thinking about?"

"I just… all these worlds, all these lives. There has to be a perfect one out there, where everyone has everything and there's peace and equality and it's perfect."

Lelouch nodded. "Indeed. I wonder if that world wouldn't be connected to the nexus, though. Perfect as it is, it wouldn't need it."

"…nexus?"

Lelouch opened his mouth to answer, and Suzaku blinked, suddenly awake and alone in his bed.

Just when it was getting good!


	27. Rivalz: Responsibility

Tamaki was the crazy one, Suzaku was the easygoing one, and it was up to Rivalz, generally, to be the reasonable one.

Not that he minded being, essentially, the group mom. Out of the three of them, he was the only one that regularly got good marks and could enter any business without getting side-eyed by the owner or workers. He was the respectable face of respectability that made it okay for Tamaki and Suzaku to walk in certain neighbourhoods (not Gino's – there was only so much being Britannian could buy). And it wasn't like he got anything in return. The non-Britannian gangs still looked at him like a Britannian, the Britannians looked at him like a race-traitor, and his dad occasionally asked why he couldn't make 'normal' friends.

But his mom was awesome, Tamaki's mom was crazy and awesome, Genbu was awesome, Lelouch was… Lelouch, and Suzaku and Tamaki were the best friends ever – loyal to a fault and way more fun to be around than the snobby Britannian boys his father would have preferred.

(Gino didn't count. Gino was like the anti-snob Britannian. Even though Rivalz's dad got all puffed up and happy when he found out that Rivalz had made friends with him.)

Still, it was hard watching his friends fall in love and fall apart. Tamaki went through fling after fling, getting heartbroken every time for at least a few hours. Gino's relationship with Suzaku was doomed from the start, in hindsight, and watching it slowly collapse under the weight of Genbu's disapproval and Lelouch's ever-present shadow was painful. But nothing compared to watching Suzaku's love for Lelouch grow into infatuation and lust and a different kind of love.

Rivalz wanted to blame Lelouch. After all, he should have stopped it from being a thing in the first place. But he wasn't honestly sure if that was possible. Watching Suzaku watch Lelouch was like watching a flower soak up a gentle rain. It wasn't just that he clearly adored Lelouch, it was that he grew under Lelouch's gaze, into the man he thought Lelouch wanted him to be. And that man was a good person; strong and kind and open and honest. So Rivalz couldn't really blame Lelouch for allowing that Suzaku to grow.

And he couldn't blame him for the more… _adult_ directions Suzaku's mind turned to during puberty. Sex wasn't something that any of them were exactly unfamiliar with in theory, although by the time they were fifteen only Tamaki and Gino had any practical experience. So catching Suzaku watching pornography, even of two men together, shouldn't have been as shocking as it was.

But it was. For two reasons – the first being that Rivalz hadn't considered Suzaku a truly sexual creature until that point. Tamaki, yes. Even Gino had his moments where he clearly wanted something viscerally that he knew he couldn't have. But Suzaku always seemed so pure with his 'being boyfriends' with Gino and his crush on Lelouch. Even walking in on what had seemed like a kiss in the Kururugi's kitchen had been something Rivalz could almost talk himself into believing he'd imagined. Almost.

Finding that Suzaku's libido was just as strong as most boys was a bit of a surprise. But it was the second reason that truly shocked Rivalz and, unlike Suzaku's libido, it wasn't something that he would have arrived at eventually.

It wasn't just sex that Suzaku wanted. It was sex with Lelouch.

Love was something Rivalz understood. Although he'd never say it out loud, he loved his mother and he loved his friends. He even loved his father, in a way. But the kind of devotion that Suzaku showed towards Lelouch, the way that it seemed that if it wasn't Lelouch it wouldn't do… That kind of infatuation and obsession was…

_Dangerous_.

Especially for an older man. Rivalz had watched Suzaku watch Lelouch and Lelouch watch Suzaku for years, and there was always something there, under the surface. But that wasn't something that you could build a future on. Lelouch adored Suzaku and Suzaku worshiped Lelouch and to go from that to the kind of love that Suzaku and Gino could have had was… well, it was impossible, wasn't it?

It wasn't even that Lelouch was too old. It was that he was _Lelouch_. He hadn't changed Suzaku's diapers, but he'd done almost everything else. How could he lower himself to accept Suzaku as an equal? How could Suzaku ever prove himself enough to stand on par with Lelouch's level? Rivalz was the reasonable one, and this wasn't a reasonable thing to do.

But Suzaku wouldn't see that. And Rivalz wasn't willing to give up his friendship to make his friend see. So, for just over a year and with Lelouch less of a constant that he'd been for much of Suzaku and Rival's lives, Rivalz had to stand by and watch Suzaku falling deeper and deeper into something that he seemed unable and unwilling to escape. Absence may have made his heart grow fonder, but the months he spent with Lelouch certainly didn't make that fondness wear off. If anything, Suzaku was more determined than ever that Lelouch was his one and only, to the point that he felt guilty over whatever he'd forced on Lelouch and worried that it had ruined everything.

It was that fear that convinced Rivalz that Suzaku was not only serious about this, but that he knew what he was doing. When hurting the person you love strikes truly sickening terror in your heart.

…Rivalz didn't have to like it, but he did have to accept it. And, as the reasonable one, he had to watch and wait and make sure that this didn't destroy Suzaku. Or, if it did, that Suzaku had someone to turn to.


	28. Mommyzaku: Snapshots 100

"Hahaue, father's fighting with Aunt Cornelia again."

Suzaku sighed. She adored Byakko, and was proud at how easily he'd adapted to his new father over the past two years, but the fact that his curiosity about Lelouch led to him finding out things that she'd rather keep from him until he was older was… unfortunate. She'd told him stories about her Lelouch – the silly ones, mostly, the way he could find a hiding place within seconds of entering any building, the songs he'd sung to Nunnally, all his different smiles and that one special laugh he gave when he was surprised by how amused he was. Only Suzaku and Nunnally had made him laugh like that.

She hadn't told him about Lelouch's dark moods, his occasional undirected bursts of anger, the few times she'd fallen asleep beside him and woken alone only to find Lelouch either plotting or seething about something. He tried to keep that side of himself from her, and she did appreciate his protective nature for what it was worth, but if there was one positive thing that capturing him and turning him in to his father had done, at least it had made Lelouch look at her like an equal.

At seventeen, at Ashford, they'd made love to each other. Lelouch had been so gentle, so careful with her and Suzaku had felt treasured and loved and undeserving. After the World of C, when they'd resumed their relationship only a year later, both still bitter and leery around each other but needing the physical reassurance and release, Lelouch was less gentle, more demanding. And Suzaku no longer felt like a lesser creature and met him thrust for thrust, as free with teeth and nails as he was, until they collapsed against each other, more deeply satisfied than either of them would have ever admitted.

That was probably when Byakko had been conceived – in the mistrust and second-guessing of the early days of their second relationship. Suzaku liked to imagine it was on the night that it rained and they sheltered in a damp cave and C.C. had pointedly moved deeper in the cave to give them privacy. Lelouch had said something and Suzaku had yelled and Lelouch had yelled back and she'd ended up taking him just inside the entrance, riding him slowly as he spat and cursed at her and the flashes of lightning lit his furious face. Suzaku could still remember how his fingers had felt, digging into her hips, trying to get her to move faster, how powerful she'd felt on top of him, pinning him down with her thighs and her hands on his shoulders.

In a split second, she'd felt that they were both their true selves – Lelouch, the powerless prince, all arrogance and fire fighting an unwinnable battle, Suzaku, taking control but open and as captivated by Lelouch's expressions as he was by her body. She felt herself switch from anger and frustration to a strange new kind of love, a nearly sadistic thing that wanted to keep Lelouch pinned and writhing beneath her as she took and gave pleasure to them both as she saw fit.

In that very moment, Lelouch's grip shifted slightly, from gripping her to holding her. Rather than fighting, he started moving with her and Suzaku nearly cried with how good it felt for Lelouch to just let go and give into her. For the first time, she felt like this might actually work out.

It hadn't healed the rift between them, but it started to bridge it. By the time Lelouch told her what Zero Requiem truly entailed, she trusted him again, even loved him. Enough that she was willing to do what he wanted and kill him.

And then, a few months later, she found out about Byakko.

She never regretted keeping him, despite needing C.C. to take over much of Zero's duties for a few months. Empress Nunnally had cried at his birth, almost happier than Suzaku was. She'd insisted that he keep his royal birthright despite Suzaku's misgivings and was Nunnally's current heir until she had a child of her own. When Suzaku had woken up from the nexus with Lelouch curled next to her, their first thought was how Nunnally would take this.

She took it fairly well – neither crying nor sobbing at the sight of him. When Suzaku explained an abbreviated version of what had happened, they agreed to introduce him as a distant relative on Marianne's side, with only Nunnally and Cornelia completely aware of his actual identity. Lelouch still had his _geass_, although he did promise not to use it without Nunnally's or Suzaku's permission (which was pretty sneaky, making _them_ act as his conscience, and Lelouch had been totally unrepentant when Suzaku had pointed that out). To most of Britannia, he had the misfortune of resembling the demon Emperor. To Nunnally, he was as much her brother as her own Lelouch had been since, as she put it, she hadn't really known that Lelouch either. To Cornelia he was a potential threat and a nuisance. And to Suzaku, he was a second chance.

To Byakko, however, he was simply "father", as Suzaku was "hahaue".

"_Hahaue_…"

"_Hai, hai, Byakko_. I'll be right there." _As soon as Lelouch and Cornelia shouted each other out._ They were more alike than they'd admit, and nothing raised either of their hackles like a threat to Nunnally's happiness. The anniversary of Lelouch's death was coming up, and that was always a trying time. The previous two years, Lelouch had tried to stay out of everyone's way, but this year he'd seemed to reverse his strategies.

He could be exhausting.

Before Suzaku could go break up the inevitable fight, however, Lelouch stormed into the room, full of energy. "Suzaku! Oh, hey Byakko."

"Father!"

Lelouch ruffled Byakko's hair with a mixture of rough and tender affection. "Make yourself scarce, kiddo, I need to talk to your mom."

As Byakko scampered off with a grin, Suzaku turned to Lelouch with a frown. "He overheard you fighting with Cornelia agai-hmph." Her complaint was cut off by Lelouch's mouth.

"We need to pack for five days."

"…what?"

"You, me, Byakko, and Nunnally. We're taking five days off with nothing but a minimal, loyal guard and no distractions. I'm not watching you and her go through this again."

_That's_ what they had been fighting about?

Suzaku smiled. "And Cornelia?"

"She'll be fine on her own. Just remember to order Schneizel to advise her properly." Lelouch wrapped his arms around Suzaku's waist and kissed her again, properly. "For five days, we can pretend to be a proper, normal family."

Suzaku melted in his arms. For all that Lelouch could be an insufferable pain, he was quite adept at sussing out the secret desires of those he loved. And at making those desires come true.

And, in that moment, in Lelouch's arms, Suzaku could desire nothing more.


	29. Lelouch: Refrained

"Humanity longs for the future."

Suzaku frowned. "What?" The room around him faded in and out, switching between an opulent bedroom and a damp cave. "Lelouch, what are–"

"What happened to Euphy… it wasn't your fault."

_Euphy_? Suzaku remembered her dead body lying on the ground while Lelouch mourned in another world. It seemed unfair that she would have to suffer in more than one. "Lelouch, I'm not your Suzaku, I'm–"

"_Geass_ is a tool, Suzaku. Just a tool. Like a gun, it can't do anything on its own. If anyone's to blame, it's me."

Suzaku didn't have time for this. "Lelouch! You're dreaming right now."

"Very well." Lelouch reached out and cupped Suzaku's face, gently pressing his lips to Suzaku's, in one of the _very_ few kisses Suzaku had shared with a dream!Lelouch. "I will grant you this wish, Suzaku, for all that my actions have cost you. If you truly believe blood can wash blood, then I'll make that happen for you."

"I don't…"

"But in return, I will have your loyalty and your obedience, for the rest of your life."

Suzaku pulled away, shocked at the demand. "No! What are you…" Lelouch's eyes weren't focused on him and, rather than drop his empty hand, he dipped his head and kissed the air, moving as if he was tracing kisses against someone's lips, cheeks, neck… "What _are_ you…"

Lelouch's eyes flickered to Suzaku's face, then he frowned, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. "_Geass_ is… is like a wish, Suzaku." He seemed to have trouble getting his words out. "The power to… to do things you can't by your-yourself." He blinked hard. "By your own power. I…"

"Lelouch?"

Lelouch shook his head once, sharply. "No, go away. You're not him, your not even my memories of him." Their location settled into a richly decorated room, with every surface covered in dust save for a path from the door to the closet to the bed. "You're a nightmare."

"No, I promise, I'm not," Suzaku said. "I… I'll be quiet if you want. Until you wake up."

"But you'd still be _here_!" Lelouch thundered out suddenly, throwing his arm out violently. "This is _our_ place and you're invading it!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to…" Suzaku stepped back, a little frightened at the ferocity of that outburst. It wasn't like Lelouch at all. "I'm sorry!"

"Sorry doesn't change anything! Sorry won't bring Euphy or your father back, won't clean your hands of all the blood you've spilt, won't fill the hole in my life that you left!" Lelouch turned away. "You're sorry? That is less than meaningless, Suzaku."

Suzaku frowned. "I wasn't apologizing for that. I was apologizing for being in your way. The rest of that _isn't my fault_. I'm not your Suzaku, and I didn't do those things!"

"But you would have, in his place."

"Yeah, _maybe_. But then I'd be dead and I wouldn't have to deal with your shit!" Suzaku snapped.

There was a long, tense moment of silence.

"…sorry."

Lelouch laughed. It sounded broken. "How nostalgic."

"I didn't mean…"

"Ye,s you did."

Suzaku approached Lelouch carefully. "I really am sorry." He placed his hand on Lelouch's shoulder. Lelouch tensed slightly but didn't pull away. "Can I do something to make it better?"

Lelouch snorted. "I don't suppose you have a vial of _refrain_ lying around?" Suzaku shook his head, despite the fact that Lelouch still had his back to him and wouldn't see it. "Didn't think so."

"Does that… the _refrain_… does it make it better?"

"I… it makes it different. It's wonderful while it's working, except when it's horrifying. But it always runs out, and I still have to do my duty and maintain the peace that Suzaku bought with his life. I'd take even the horrifying trips, to get back what we had. If I could have lived those two years forever…"

Suzaku wrapped his arms around Lelouch from behind, ignoring his stiffening shoulders. "Only two years?"

"Less, really. A few months as children, a few as friends, even fewer as lovers…"

"At least you had that."

Lelouch snorted. "No. If I hadn't… if we'd never… It's not really better to have loved and lost. After Euphy… my Suzaku would agree as well."

"Well, I don't. So that's another thing your Suzaku and I don't have in common."

"And what would your Lelouch have said?"

Suzaku smiled. "He'd say… 'I don't see the point in this debate, Suzaku. Surely it depends on the individuals and the relationship in question.' or something else that didn't answer the question. He's a lawyer."

The laugh that that surprised out of Lelouch was more genuine, but still fractured. "Good for him. Taking a side means playing a fool's game. Better to fight for your next paycheck than for ephemeral things like _ideals_ and _principles_."

That didn't sit well with Suzaku. "He's not like that."

"I'm sure he's far more admirable with you by his side. As his conscience. As his heart." Lelouch turned around. "What do you think would happen to your Lelouch if you left him, Suzaku?"

Suzaku had no idea. The one doing the leaving was always Lelouch. "I… I don't…"

"He'd break."

The certainty in Lelouch's voice couldn't be argued with. All Suzaku could do in reply was bow his head.


	30. Nunnally: Love

When Nunnally was six, her first grade teacher asked the class to make lists of things they loved, and then draw a picture beside all the words. Nunnally very nearly threw a crying fit when her teacher made her stop at ten items, but she'd taken the assignment very seriously and carefully chose her top ten most loved things in the whole world.

Her mother topped the list. Lelouch barely made it in at number nine, just above swimming.

It wasn't that she didn't love her brother (he _was_ on the list, after all) it was just that he was, well, a _boy_ and so much older and they hardly had anything in common at all. He'd protect her and stand up for her, but he'd also be impatient with her and boss her around and abandon her to run off with Clovis or Schneizel if they were more interesting.

Her father, distant and almost frightening, wasn't even on the list. It wasn't that Nunnally didn't love him, it was just that she barely knew him. She might have felt guilty, choosing a favourite from between her parents, but her father was almost never around and rarely paid any attention to her when he was, whereas her mother was the center of Nunnally's universe.

Also, Nunnally was six. Guilt was still mostly an external motivator, something that came after getting in trouble, rather than something generated within her to stop her from doing things that were "bad". No one scolded her for leaving her father off her list, or for placing her only full-blooded sibling as low as she had, particularly given who else was on the list.

Euphemia was number four and Cornelia was number seven. At least Cornelia was a _girl_ which, to Nunnally's six-year-old mind, made her automatically better than any boy, despite the fact that she was already practically an adult. Also, Euphemia adored her, and Nunnally had been going through a phase where everything Euphemia liked, she liked.

Lelouch, on the other hand, was just a peripheral part of Nunnally's life. If everything had continued as planned, they would have had a relationship typical of siblings separated by half a decade. But things rarely went exactly as planned.

The next year Nunnally's mother was dead, her father no longer even bothered looking at her, and Lelouch was doing everything in his power to keep her protected and safe, baring his figurative teeth and claws against the same brothers he'd chosen over Nunnally time and time again. Only Euphemia was allowed in the small world Lelouch had set aside for Nunnally and himself and their grief, and only then because she was quiet and small and never challenged Lelouch.

Nunnally was lost. Death was a hard and vague concept, even though she understood it better than she admitted even to herself. Lelouch explained that their mother was gone, and couldn't ever come back ("forever" was another strange idea) and even he, even their father (so powerful and large, and lately so distant and cold) could change that. Nunnally privately thought that just because her father and brother couldn't do anything that didn't mean that her mother couldn't. Lelouch never addressed that, so it took Nunnally a while to wrap her head around the fact that her mother was either choosing not to return or powerless to.

When the truth of that finally hit, it was three in the morning and Nunnally was alone in her bed, but not for long. The sudden realization of how alone she was, how fragile her hold on her only remaining support was, the irrational but inescapable fear of _something_ happening to Lelouch even now had her jumping out of bed (despite the risk of the monsters who lived under it reaching out to grab her) and racing to his room.

Lelouch barely woke up when Nunnally threw herself into his bed, clinging to him and shaking with a fear she couldn't even express. He sleepily wrapped one arm around her, holding her close and muttered something about everything being okay before his breathing settled again. That was just enough to reassure Nunnally that not only was her brother alive and with her, he still loved her and was able to at least try to protect her.

He was an island of security in a storm of chaos, and Nunnally clung to him with both her arms and her heart. For two years, they were inseparable. For two years, Nunnally curled up, as warm and safe as she could feel in a world that could steal her mother away without warning, in her brother's shadow.

And then Euphemia came to her one night and stroked her hair and promised her that she would be protected and loved.

And that Lelouch was gone.

Nunnally wasn't seven anymore. She was almost ten and no longer as naïve as she'd been. The differences between "gone" and "dead" were clear – "gone" meant that Lelouch could come back, that it wasn't forever, and that there was hope.

But "gone" also meant that Lelouch had had a choice. And that he'd chosen to leave.

It took Nunnally years to overcome that, to finally come to terms with the idea that Lelouch leaving her wasn't her fault, or because he didn't love her. Euphemia helped. And mere minutes after being reunited with her brother, Nunnally's superficial, fake forgiveness had become real. She still wasn't entirely certain why he'd left her, but she was willing to believe him when he said that he was sorry and that he'd always loved her.

And even if she couldn't _quite_ believe that he'd done it for her sake, she was able to forgive that as well.

Because she loved him too. And he still made her top ten.


	31. Refrainzaku: Snapshots 105

"Lord Zero?"

Suzaku, safely hidden behind Zero's mask, winced. The withdrawal headache was getting sharper and stronger, almost dizzying in its intensity, and he'd started sweating.

No shakes yet, though, not even a fine tremor, so he could wait until his duties were over before seeking out relief. He couldn't wait much longer, however, unless he was willing to risk hallucinations again.

_Refrain_ use wasn't as simple as injecting the drug and reliving the past, at least not once the dependence and addiction kicked in. At the height of Suzaku's use, he'd started running Princess Euphemia through with his sword, seeing Lelouch shoot his father, and stabbing Lelouch in the stomach alone in his bedroom. The worst of his memories merged together and became new nightmares, as real as any other _Refrain_-induced vision.

It affected his work as well. He became slow and clumsy (for him) as the mild neurotoxin decreased sensitivity and sensation in his fingers and toes. It wasn't until he bruised the Empress when he shoved her out of the way of an assassin's blade that he realized how much it was affecting him. So, armed with the courage that complete and total fear offered him, Suzaku decided to quit.

Three days later, he was a writhing mass of pain and nausea, shaking and sweating on his bed, lashing out at phantoms.

Just like actual memories, the effects of _Refrain_ weren't easy or simple to escape.

The trick was moderation. Maybe. Or maybe that was just the coward's way out, but it was all Suzaku had, unless he was willing to find a doctor to treat Zero, the people's hero, of his _Refrain_ addiction. It wasn't that bad, not yet.

He started by taking one dose a day, about an hour before bed, just enough for half an hour of memories. That stabilized the withdrawal symptoms, but the clumsiness was still a problem. When he switched to every second day, however, he started having trouble remembering whether he'd taken his dose the night before or not. That led to days like this, with the symptoms hitting Suzaku halfway through his day when he forgot to fill his veins with the substance that his body had learned to crave, even need.

He didn't have the time to try the months-long detox that was the mainstay of _Refrain_ treatment, a significant portion of which he would have had to spend unconscious and vulnerable as the doctors nursed him through the worst of the withdrawal.

Zero couldn't do that. Suzaku couldn't allow it. Nunnally needed to be protected. No matter how much Suzaku wished he could join Lelouch and Euphemia and even Luciano and Prince Clovis (they weren't really so different, after all) he had responsibilities and duties.

And that would have to be enough.

"L-lord Zero?" The guard repeated, nervously. It wasn't like Zero to allow his mind to wander off. Suzaku needed to get his act together until he could dose himself.

He sighed. "Yes?"

"Lord Weinberg is waiting to discuss the security measures for the Empress's gala next week."

Gino. Great. Not only something that would require actual focus but something that would require focusing on _Gino_, and his endless bright, bubbly energy. Suzaku's headache doubled in strength at the mere thought.

At least Gino was one of the few people who could read Zero well enough to know when he was crossing the line between annoying and insufferable. When he bothered to try, that was.

Suzaku hoped Gino was willing to try this time. For both their sakes.

Fortunately, it turned out that Gino's perceptiveness was working overtime. One look at Zero, the moment he walked into the briefing room, and Gino's usually cheerful face was instantly marred with a light frown.

He was getting wrinkles. They weren't that old, were they? Barely twenty and yet the years lay heavily, even on someone as seemingly lighthearted as Gino.

Suzaku felt a twinge of guilt. The less he worked, the more he escaped into dreams and memories, the more work people like Gino and Kallen had to do. This world was _his_ to protect, Lelouch had given it to him, and made it so that Suzaku couldn't give it up ("_live_") of his own free will. Handing that responsibility off, even to people he trusted, was despicable.

But evening found him as it always did, with the vial of _Refrain_ on his lap and the lure of memories too strong to resist. The excuse of withdrawal, the excuse of being a "functional addict", the excuse of Lelouch's selfish cruelty in leaving Suzaku alone all melting under the simple and inexorable desire to _escape_.

The sharp prick of the needle and the cold burn of the drug and Suzaku was swept away again. All the guilt and shame melting away as he became nine years old, and the most important thing in the world was catching a butterfly for Lelouch to indentify and describe to Nunnally.

Simplicity replaced complexity.

Confidence replaced uncertainty.

Love replaced resentment.

Happiness replaced grief.

The sound of Suzaku's laughter echoed in Zero's chambers, light and free, no doubt bemusing anyone who would have passed by his door. Wrapped up in a challenge that he could meet, one that would bring smiles to the faces of his dearest friends, Suzaku couldn't have brought himself to care about the potential cost of discovery in that moment. The world was entirely made of Lelouch and Nunnally and the mountain-side forest that surrounded the Kururugi shrine.

And, for a short time, Suzaku was able to escape the inexorable trap that Lelouch had placed him in.


	32. Lelouch: Ordinary People

"What is this?" Lelouch demanded. Suzaku looked away, shamefaced. "Suzaku, I asked you a question."

"…a kitten."

"And what, pray tell, is it doing here?"

Suzaku hunched slightly protectively over the mewling ball of fur in his arms. "I…"

Lelouch sighed, his eyes softening with affectionate exasperation. "Our lease doesn't allow pets. You know that, Suzaku."

Suzaku nodded miserably, but his words were anything but accepting. "The other Lelouchs let _their_ Suzakus have Arthurs."

Not for the first time, Lelouch was grateful there was no one to overhear their conversations. They all made perfect sense, but even before the dreams and the nexus, Suzaku would occasionally say things out of thoughtlessness that could have gotten them in trouble. "The other Lelouchs are Emperors or Immortals, not assistant history professors. And the other Suzakus are Knights or Heroes… or Emperors or Immortals, not junior police officers. They have countries and worlds to worry about. We have our damage deposit."

"He'll be quiet. No one'll even know."

"Suzaku, the apartment _already _smells like cat."

"It's not a _bad_ smell."

"That's a matter of opinion," Lelouch said, as if that ended the matter. He didn't really want to keep arguing, because Suzaku seemed to really want this, and he might actually bring out the big guns, the one thing that could always overrule everything, even Lelouch's common sense…

"Nunnally'll love him."

Well. Shit.

"You cheating bastard."

Suzaku just grinned shamelessly, holding up the kitten to bump noses with Lelouch. Instinctively, Lelouch's eyes crossed (as did the kitten's) and when Suzaku laughed, Lelouch knew it was at his expense.

And yet, even with Suzaku's gentle, affectionate mockery ringing through the air, Lelouch couldn't find it in himself to deny him. One day Lelouch would find a similar attack, one that would ensure his victory in every argument. One that wasn't pride-destroying and double-edged, like the soft, tremulous 'don't you love me?' that neither he nor Suzaku had ever used more than once (and only then when it was important and they really had doubted the other's affection). But until then, although Lelouch was better with words and almost _always_ right, Suzaku only lost arguments when he chose not to invoke Nunnally.

It was frustrating.

When Suzaku replaced the kitten's face with his own, peppering soft kisses on Lelouch's nose and cheeks and lips, Lelouch knew that he'd lost. And he knew that Suzaku knew that. So it was only pride that made him push Suzaku away, attempting one more weak effort to talk sense into him. "If the building manager or superintendent ever finds out, we might be forced to move."

"Nah. Like you said, we might lose our security deposit but we won't be homeless 'cause of this little guy."

"Mew," the newly-dubbed Arthur added.

Lelouch rolled his eyes. "I'm not cleaning up after it."

"Him," Suzaku corrected with a grin.

"And you're responsible for making sure it has all its shots."

"_His_ shots." Suzaku leaned in. "Thank you, Lelouch."

Lelouch let Suzaku kiss him, but pulled away before it could deepen. "If I ever find that thing in our bed, I will be looking up recipes for _chat-au-flambé_ that very evening, understood?"

"But he's so small and tiny and… understood." Suzaku's eyes widened past the point of cuteness and into the realm of adorability. "Can I have another kiss?"

Lelouch brushed aside a lock of Suzaku's hair and sighed, deeply put-upon. "I spoil you."

"Yes please." Even with one hand full of cat, Suzaku's free fingers managed to find Lelouch's most sensitive spots with the comfortable ease of practice and confidence that was uniquely Suzaku's. Lelouch felt Suzaku's lips turn up against his own as a very different sigh, one of pure appreciation rather than exasperation, escaped Lelouch's lips.

"Can I spoil you back?" Suzaku asked with artfully faked innocence. His hand slid under Lelouch's shirt, the tips of his fingers gently sliding under the waist of Lelouch's pants, playfully caressing the sensitive skin there until Lelouch found himself growling softly and pushing Suzaku down to kneel in front of him. Their eyes met and they grinned, both more than eager for this, Lelouch's cock straining against his pants and Suzaku's mouth watering so much that he had to swallow before…

"Mew?"

The plaintive whine cut through Lelouch's arousal and Suzaku's attention was immediately diverted. Lelouch let his hands drop from Suzaku's shoulders as Suzaku looked up at him pleadingly and apologetically.

"Fine." The last thing Lelouch wanted was for Suzaku to force his way through a blowjob while distracted. "Deal with him first."

Suzaku stood up, beaming as he held the cat to his chest, his eyes as bright and happy as his smile. "I love you." He leaned in for a quick kiss, one that tasted of his happiness. "And you called Arthur 'him'."

Lelouch rolled his eyes. "Don't read too much into it."

"You're already warming up to him," Suzaku said, bounding away (carefully, he was still holding a kitten, after all) out of Lelouch's reach. "Just wait a couple of days and you'll be head over heals for him!"

Lelouch refused to smile at Suzaku's energetic enthusiasm. "I already have a noisy, demanding, _smelly_ pet. But maybe I could be talked into trading him in for a smaller, fuzzier option."

Suzaku shook his head. "You wouldn't know what to do without me."

It was a good thing Suzaku ducked into the kitchen to fill Arthur's newly purchased bowls with food and water, because Lelouch had no retort to that.

Well. Other than "No, I wouldn't."


	33. Charles: A Plus Parenting

With great power came great responsibility.

But, for Charles zi Britannia, that was beside the point. He took his responsibilities seriously – to his country, to his allies, to his family – but, for him, with great power came the need to acquire more power. It was a hunger that fed on itself, an inexorable desire that could only be temporarily slaked until it flared up once again, fiery and avaricious.

He was the younger brother of a man who'd willing stepped aside for his brother's ambitions. _Everyone_ willingly stepped aside (or contorted themselves) for Charles zi Britannia's ambitions. That was just the way of the world. It was expected.

His children were a reflection of that. Useless and spoiled by their mother, Odysseus and Guinevere had been an object lesson to Charles. He'd married their mother for her family's support, but it wasn't more than five years later that he realized how expensive that support was going to be. Odysseus was cosseted, assured of his place as Charles's successor without the drive to earn it or the charisma to follow through on it, and Guinevere thought of herself as a princess, entitled to respect that she wasn't obliged to return.

Charles didn't want pampered children. He wanted hardened, brilliant sons and daughters. He wanted a legacy that would outlast time.

It didn't take long for him to find a beautiful and brilliant woman whose talents complimented his own. She was from a middle-class family, not poor but certainly not at the level of the Britannian family, and that inferiority complex was her only real flaw. It was unfortunate that she passed that on to her eldest son because, apart from his diffidence, he was the perfect son. As brilliant and beautiful as his mother, loyal to a fault to his family, obedient to his father's wishes in all ways but one – he would never overstep his place as second son, no matter how Charles goaded him.

A large part of the problem was Odysseus's mother, who resented Charles's mistress and her son. To remedy this, Charles divorced her and, within the year, married again, more carefully this time. His new wife was the perfect politician's wife – lovely and graceful, a philanthropist and socialite and devoted mother. She bore Charles only daughters, but between Cornelia's military service, that would have been impressive for any man, and Euphemia's innate charisma and delicate beauty that would become the envy of any woman, they covered the entire spectrum Charles would have wanted from any of his daughters. Between them, however, was Clovis, a child who embraced the very ideal of external beauty in every possible way, both professionally and personally. Useless, except for window-dressing, and a disappointment from the same woman who'd given Charles Schneizel.

And then Charles met Marianne.

She was in her early twenties and Charles was in his late thirties, and she was everything he wanted and everything he shouldn't have wanted. Crude and arrogant, far beyond her station, she would have been a political liability rather than an asset. Her loyalty, strong though it was, was hard-earned rather than a gift given to her family. She immediately bonded with Schneizel and Cornelia, but was obviously dismissive of Guinevere and Clovis. Odysseus, she regarded with perturbed bemusement, as if wondering how _this_ creature could be Charles's heir. There was no upside to starting a relationship with her, no benefit.

Within two months, she had replaced Schneizel's mother at Charles's side.

She was the only woman Charles zi Britannia had ever loved. Her death, seemingly random, the apparent result of a clash between two non-Britannian gangs, broke him. He couldn't stand to see her children, Lelouch, lithe and dark, Nunnally with her bright blue eyes and generous smile, as they triggered too many memories of her. He pushed them away, ignoring Nunnally and using Lelouch as a tool, justifying it to himself as the start of grooming Marianne's eldest for success. It was a misstep, and it wasn't until Lelouch's disappearance that Charles began questioning himself.

Which led, indirectly, to the realization that since he'd brought Marianne into the family, his elder brother, the same one who had stepped aside for him as a young man, quietly supporting him from the shadows; had suddenly started taking a more active role in Charles's plans. By the time Lelouch was born, he was in charge of scheduling for Charles and all his women and children, managing to keep Marianne and Lelouch out of the limelight. Once Nunnally was born, his had been the loudest voice protesting the legitimization of Nunnally and Lelouch, as well as Schneizel and Clovis, and gifting them with the Britannia name.

Lelouch had been just old enough to remember being a Lamperouge. When it turned out that he'd taken that last name after he ran, Charles was surprisingly unsurprised.

The resistance against Marianne and her children should have been an early warning that there was something between his brother and his mistress. If Marianne had lived, perhaps that suspicion might have even grown until he doubted her fidelity. But it wasn't lust or attraction that bound them together, but something far darker, a resentment and spitefulness that hadn't even ended with Marianne's death, that passed on with Charles's brother whispering ideas of how to use Nunnally against Lelouch, to make him live up to his potential.

Marianne had been the only woman Charles had ever loved. And that love had nurtured a hatred that cost her her life, and her son his place in the family.

With Lelouch gone, both Cornelia and Euphemia became overprotective of Nunnally, and Charles had no chance of even coming close to her. It wasn't until Lelouch returned, an adult and immersed in the family politics already, that Charles saw his opportunity to fix everything.

Odysseus was unworthy. Schneizel was unwilling. It had always been Lelouch who had been born to carry on his father's name and legacy, and his mother's will. Charles didn't care about politics and position and rights and laws. He cared about power.

And, under his subtle guidance, with just the right pushes and just the right pressure, Lelouch would be able to amass more power than even Charles had ever dared to reach for.

That would be his gift. To his and Marianne's son.

The future they'd both wanted for him.


	34. Kouteizaku: Snapshots 121

"Lelouch?"

"Hmgph?"

"I sent off the message to C.C."

"Great. Lemme sleep."

Suzaku smiled and pressed his lips against Lelouch's shoulder. "Everything's coming together."

Lelouch sighed. "You're happy, aren't you?"

"Yup."

"And when you get happy…"

"Yup." Suzaku nosed at Lelouch's ear, allowed his breath to waft over Lelouch's neck. "C'mon. Let's give those uptight Britannian servants something worth glaring at me about."

That, at least, made Lelouch laugh, which meant that the chances of him responding favourably to Suzaku's advances had increased substantially.

Suzaku kissed at the junction between Lelouch's ear and jaw, brushing his lips lightly against the sensitive skin there before pressing firm, demanding kisses with just a hint of teeth there, making his intentions clear.

Lelouch sighed and rolled away, onto his front with his back facing Suzaku. Suzaku sighed; maybe Lelouch really just wasn't in the mood…

"Go ahead. As long as you're doing all the work."

"Hmm?" Suzaku asked, not really following.

Lelouch cracked open an eye and looked up at him, just over the ridge of the pillow he'd buried his face in. "Don't expect me to pitch in when _you're_ the one who woke up all horny."

That… sounded like permission. Suzaku grinned and reached for the lube, tossing the blankets aside and covering Lelouch's back with his own body, his lips tracing every topographical variation of Lelouch's nape until Lelouch started shifting restlessly under him. Not as passive as he'd planned, then…

Twenty minutes later, as Suzaku's tongue traced idly over the single freckle that sat just where Lelouch's shoulderblade met his shoulder, a gentle knock roused them both from their post-coital lethargy.

Lelouch lifted his head just high enough so that his voice wasn't muffled by the pillow. "Enter."

Jeremiah Gottwald, Lelouch's Knight of One, met Suzaku's gaze with the usual barely restrained disgust. Suzaku smiled back and pressed his lips against Lelouch's salty skin, pleased at the small flinch Jeremiah made, and less pleased at the way Lelouch shifted away from him.

He didn't have much of a problem with the knight, on a professional level – they both adored Lelouch in their own way and both did everything they could to keep him safe (although a lot of that was taken care of by Lelouch's immortality, and the rest by Lelouch's brilliant and instinctive ability to read situations and anticipate problems). Jeremiah didn't even have any problem with Suzaku as a foreigner, at least not anymore.

No, what Jeremiah didn't like was the reminder that his Emperor spread his legs for another man. That was why Suzaku always took Lelouch when they were in Britannia and Lelouch took Suzaku when they were in Japan (Toudou had similar issues with the idea of Suzaku submitting, however willingly, to another). When they traveled outside their respective countries together, they switched. It was more fun to push their retainers' buttons than to explain that it wasn't about submission or gender roles for them. They just liked being together, in whatever way they could.

It was a good thing neither Lelouch nor Suzaku tended to allow others too dictate their feelings and actions.

But Lelouch was, in this at least, kinder than Suzaku. He snickered at the sidelong glances they received as they walked together, but he was never one to place his hand in the small of Suzaku's back or lean in just a little too close to watch those glances turn into flushes or sneers. That was always Suzaku, pushing their limits. Lelouch was more likely to pull away from Suzaku's touch, even nude under the sheets, still in the afterglow of Suzaku's particularly ardent affections, and meet Jeremiah's eyes as if he was sitting in full regalia on his throne.

"Yes?"

"Your Majesty." Jeremiah bowed, always close to picture-perfect in his presentation. "The Middle Eastern delegation is arriving in an hour, and you asked to be roused to greet them."

Lelouch nodded. "Their rooms are ready?"

"Of course."

Suzaku threw a leg over Lelouch's hip and an arm over his waist. "Abandoning me so early?" His voice was dangerously close to a whine, an unforgivable lapse with Jeremiah listening, but Lelouch just sighed.

"They'll be jet-lagged and even more eager to be sent to their beds than I will be to send them. I doubt this will take more than an hour."

Suzaku rolled his hips. "And then you'll come back to me?"

"And then I'll go to my breakfast meeting with my generals and you'll get together with Euphy and Clovis to hash out the final details of the Mongolian accords and then, if we're done early enough, maybe I'll have a few minutes to spare for you." Lelouch slipped out from under Suzaku, unselfconsciously making his way to his wardrobe, completely nude and with some fairly obvious signs of his and Suzaku's activities.

Lelouch never made overt or possessive public gestures, but he had his own subtle way of taunting.

The problem was, he taunted Suzaku just as much as he taunted anyone else. Suzaku groaned and tried to cut off any fantasies of bathing Lelouch with gentle touches and warm wet cloths. (…or his tongue. That would work just as well, Suzaku's imagination reminded him.)

Lelouch laughed lightly. "You knew what you were signing up for, _Koutei-heika_. Running an empire occasionally means leaving your lover in a cold bed."

"Of course, _Your Majesty_," Suzaku returned, using Lelouch's title right back at him. "For now."

Lelouch shot him a bright, mischievous look over his shoulder. Between the two of them, they had two thirds of the world under their control and the other third was in an alliance with one or the other. They were fully aware of other worlds where there was discord and chaos from the aftermath of civil or world wars, but they'd managed to keep this world more or less conflict-free. Once stability was ensured, with both the Japanese and Britannian royal line ending with them (until they gave up their _codes_) they both planned to spend the rest of their time together, watching out for any threats but mostly just basking in total world peace.

But part of that, naturally, was ensuring that their world wasn't ripped apart by a space-time anomaly. Suzaku grinned to himself as he lay back in bed.

He'd done what he could, to take care of that part.


	35. Nexus Lelouch

"_How many so far?"_

"_Thirty-two. For you?"_

"_Thirty-four, but they've all been cooperative. Suzaku?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_Ye-which one?"_

"My_ Suzaku."_

"_Yes, Lelouch?"_

"_How many have you connected?"_

"_Thirty exactly. Do you think we'll be done in time?"_

"_Likely. The threads are getting thinner the further out we go. Once they're intangible we'll be able to… actualize the nexus."_

A soft laugh came from one of the other Suzakus at Lelouch's word choice, but no one questioned it. The words they were using were, by their very nature, inexact. They were working with new ideas, new powers, things that even previous _geass_ and _code_ bearers hadn't gone so far as to even conceive of.

But such was the price of an overweening wish, the pull of a moment's weakness and the opportunity to harness the power of universes to make Lelouch's one true Wish come true.

An impulsive request, straight from the heart, requiring _years_ of careful calculation and manipulation to fix.

Lelouch wouldn't take it back for the world. Literally.

At first, the nexus had seemed like a gift – a bridge between worlds, that only he and Suzaku could traverse, and even then only in their dreams. A new world; an _infinity_, potentially, of new worlds; with new people and different perspectives and yet the comfort of the one person Lelouch knew better than anyone else.

If the nexus had remained stable, Lelouch wouldn't have even needed to use it. It had been built for the sake of those Lelouchs without a Suzaku, and those Suzakus without a Lelouch. As long as he had his Suzaku, Lelouch had no need of any other.

But once the nexus was shown to be unstable, cracking at the edges and leaking into worlds where Lelouch never even made his thoughtlessly heartfelt wish, _they_ had need of _him_. And if there was one thing Lelouch could never resist (apart from Suzaku) it was being needed.

Suzaku more or less agreed, only occasionally teasing Lelouch about how this was all his fault and how, for once, Suzaku was cleaning up _his_ messes. Lelouch tolerated the jibes (which were nothing less than the truth, after all) for longer than even he'd thought he would have had the patience for, before pointing out all the lives _his_ wish had made better – the Suzakus who had kept their sanity because they could visit with Lelouch in their dreams, the Lelouchs whose anger and grief had been tempered by seeing Suzaku once again, possibly (_probably_) preventing wars or even genocides.

As Lelouch listed off all the good his Wish had done, Suzaku had listened patiently with a small smile on his face, and then swept Lelouch into his arms, kissing him and pressing him back against the wall.

"You wanted me. You had the chance for anything and you chose _me._ Don't think I don't know that, or appreciate it, or think about it _all the time_."

Lelouch, his frustration long turned into a more productive passion, had pressed back, grinning. "Then stop _needling _me about it."

"Never." Suzaku had, for the first time in years, picked Lelouch up and carried him princess-style to their bed. Lelouch had been too flabbergasted to protest and, frankly, whatever got him on his back under Suzaku was fine with him at that point.

He had been more than willing to just get on with things, but Suzaku still had a point to make.

"I never want you to forget what you've done – what you wanted, what you chose, and what you risked to keep me by your side."

Ah. Of course – Lelouch might be the brains of this operation, the drive, but Suzaku was the conscience, the heart. He was also, however, a brat, so his method of reminding Lelouch of the bond they shared, the power Lelouch had wielded for their sake, was bratty.

And Lelouch wouldn't have him any other way.

Even now, spending every night weaving the worlds connected by the nexus together, tasting and tagging the other Lelouchs and Suzakus whose dreams crossed over in tangled and convoluted patterns, Lelouch couldn't help but be happy that he was doing all this with Suzaku at his side. Unlike some of the other pairs they were working with, Lelouchs and Suzakus who had _codes_ and each other but also duties and complicated feelings between them, he and his Suzaku had left the rest of the world behind, secure in their immortality and anonymity.

They had nothing else to do, no duties other than to wrangle the threads of the worlds bound by the nexus and weave them together, creating the illusion of a physical realm that could hold every dreamer from every world.

"_That's the last one."_

"_Hmm? Oh, sorry, I was distracted by… thoughts."_

"_That's just like you, Lelouch. Well, are you ready?"_

"_The worlds are connected, the meeting place has been completed, and I have you. I've never been more ready."_

"_This'll do it. This'll fix everything."_

"_I hope so."_

Despite being noncoporeal, Lelouch could feel his fingers lace with Suzaku's as they hesitated just outside the physical manifestation of the nexus. He took a deep breath (metaphorically) and moved forward, his body forming around him and Suzaku's beside him.

Their hands were, of course, joined.

Suzaku smiled at him and Lelouch nodded once, firmly before inhaling in preparation to speak.

Time to fix _everything_.

"Greetings from the nexus!"

OoO-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-OoO

And that's it! This leaves off where the nexus arc in Snapshots begins, and every Lelouch can choose to have a Suzaku (and vice versa) so everything is fine and (with a little work) has the potential to be perfect. XD

Happy endings all 'round!

Thanks to everyone for reading and especially to everyone who reviewed. Feedback is important, particularly for a fic like this which is basically a compendium (or addendum. Or other words ending in -um.) to a larger work. This fic did just what I wanted it to do - it gave different perspectives than the two main POVs in Snapshots and fleshed out the alternate worlds, and I'm so happy that my self-indulgence was so well-received. XD

As always, if anyone wants to take any of my AUs or characters or concepts, feel free! You don't even need to ask or credit (I get most of my inspiration from anonymous kinkmemes, so I don't exactly have a moral leg to stand on) but if you toss me a PM letting me know, I'd like to read it.

Thank you all again for reading!I got a kick out of writing this, so I hope you all enjoyed yourselves as well. XD


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